2015-06-17
Opposing groups face off as a crucial vote approaches in Hong Kong, June 17, 2015.
RFA
Crowds of protesters on either side of a tense debate on Hong Kong’s political future faced off outside the city’s legislature amid tight security on Wednesday as lawmakers called a halt to the first day of debate ahead of a crucial vote.
Protesters waving banners in support of Beijing’s plan for the 2017 elections for the former British colony’s next chief executive chanted “Vote out the pan-democrats in 2016, say yes to 2017!”
Meanwhile, pro-democracy protesters held up the yellow and black banners of last year’s Umbrella Movement, which has-—together with the 27 pan-democratic lawmakers in the Legislative Council (LegCo)—dismissed Beijing’s electoral reform plan as “fake universal suffrage.”
“Our destiny, our freedom! Say no to fake universal suffrage!” they shouted from the other side of crowd barriers placed by police.
Wong Tze Yuet, spokesman for the student activist group Scholarism, which played a key role in last year’s 79-day Occupy Central civil disobedience movement, said the pro-democracy camp outnumbered the pro-reform camp several times over, in spite of earlier reports from government broadcaster RTHK that the pro-Beijing camp was larger.
“When we saw how many people there were from the other side, Scholarism called on everyone to gather here, to tell the government our opinion,” he said.
“We think that this reform package should be voted down, unless something unexpected happens,” Wong told RFA on Wednesday, after lawmakers adjourned for further debate on Thursday.
The students were joined outside LegCo by key figures in the Occupy Central campaign, which drew hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets at its height after riot police fired tear gas and pepper spray at protesters shielding themselves with umbrellas.
‘We want a real choice’
Under the terms of an Aug. 31 decree from China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), Hong Kong’s five million voters will each cast a ballot in the 2017 race for chief executive, but they may only choose among candidates vetted by a pro-Beijing committee.
Critics say the arrangement will mean that no pan-democratic politicians, who currently hold enough of the 60 LegCo seats to block the plan, will be able to run in the election.
A demonstrator surnamed Wong said she had also taken part in the Occupy Central protests that took over key highways and intersections in downtown Hong Kong last year.
“We want genuine universal suffrage, not fake universal suffrage,” Wong told RFA. “We want a real choice of who we elect.”
“We don’t want bunch of rotten apples and oranges that have been picked out for us. That’s no use to us,” she said.
