01 opinion
Written by: Commentary Editor
2019-11-22 08:21
Last updated date: 2019-11-22 08:21The district board election will be held on Sunday (24th). Under the storm of anti-reforms, the political atmosphere in recent months has been arrogant, and the position is ahead of everything and social rationality is lost. District Council elections should be a good opportunity for the society to temporarily lay down differences, select community representatives, and return to the people's livelihood issues. However, in this election, some candidates have a political standpoint. They are resistant to new immigrants and tourists in the Mainland. They are almost irrational. It is difficult for Hong Kong 01 to be exact. A district board member is supposed to be a public service with the service community first. However, if someone builds their political capital above the xenophobia, the position is so, the voters need to think hard and whether they are suitable for this task.
Some people want to turn this year's district election politics into a highly politicized, politically handsome candidate abound. The picture shows the public consultation meeting on the constituency boundary of the district board election last year.
"Hong Kong 01" has always stressed that the District Council is not a place to vent political ideology, but to do practical work, regional work, and service communities. Although the seat of the District Council will affect 117 special preferred seats and 6 members of the Legislative Council, most of the time, the daily work of the District Council members should be based on people's livelihood and politics.
However, this year's democrats have played a major political issue, claiming "the five major demands and a referendum". The establishments are not to be outdone. They are mainly slogans of "anti-violence" and are clearly targeted at the democrats who sympathize with the anti-cultivation demonstrators. Member Lu Weiguo even described the election as a "righteous confrontation." The two sides are not allowed to make decisions, and each of them has clearly aggravated the political struggle atmosphere of the election. Among them, one of the long-term focus issues of Hong Kong society - the contradiction between China and Hong Kong - has become a tool for politicians to ignite.
Some District Council candidates also regard this issue as a bargaining chip, which we cannot agree with. For example, the current Ma Wan District Councillor, Tan Kaibang, is the founder of the Green Group's environmental touch. In his early years, he focused on environmental protection and urban planning issues, but he was also familiar with the paranoid position of the mainland. As early as September 2013, Tan Kaibang, together with some democrats, advertised in the newspapers as the chief executive of Leung Chun-ying, but at the same time blamed Hong Kong's social problems for a large number of free travellers and new immigrants to come to Hong Kong to propose "source reduction" and new immigrants. The "Hong Kong people" have succeeded in attracting public concern. Due to the discriminatory content of the content, Zhang Chaoxiong, a former Legislative Council member who participated in the joint decision, decided to withdraw. In 2015, Tan Kaibang, who has joined the New Democracy Alliance, was elected as a member of the Ma Wan District. However, his style has not changed. He often launches or participates in demonstrations against new immigrants and mainland tourists. He has put many livelihood issues, regardless of land and housing, medical needs, etc. They are all biased towards the daily quota of 150 one-way permits.
In fact, the medical problems in Hong Kong involve complex problems such as inadequate doctors, unsatisfactory public-private medical diversion, persistent population aging, and management of the Hospital Authority. The increase in population is only one aspect, and new immigrants are one of the small dots in the population increase. Moreover, the HA has not set up special data to keep the number of new immigrants seeking treatment. In the end, whether the new immigrants are the main cause of public hospitals is not conclusive. According to the statistics of the Hong Kong Association of Community Organisations, nearly half of the inpatients in the public hospitals are aged 55 or above. However, among the new immigrant population in the Mainland in 2016, this age group only accounts for 6.4%. The argument that the public hospital was smashed was too arbitrary and lacked substantial grounds to support it.
Some people are politically savvy, blindly harassing new immigrants as a tool for collecting votes. The picture shows the press conference of the Social Association, insisting that the new immigrants are mainly responsible for non-public hospitals. (Photo picture / photo by Chen Shuxia)
"Hong Kong 01" has always supported the SAR Government in retrieving the one-way permit approval authority, increasing transparency, dispelling the public's misunderstanding of the one-way permit system, and improving the planning of future population policies. When some people in the people’s livelihood policy are controversial, they only blame the new arrivals or mainland tourists for their problems. They insist that they are the source of everything and the discussion is out of focus. The most memorable example is that after the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was opened to traffic in October last year, due to improper deployment of the authorities, the response was not good. The traffic connection was disrupted at the beginning of the traffic. A large number of passengers poured into Tung Chung and some were found to be unlicensed. The tour group has caused the Tung Chung City Centre to spurt and affect residents' lives. However, this is a policy leak. The reasonable approach should be to require the relevant departments to quickly amend and improve. However, a group of regional organizations and politicians have initiated the so-called "recovery of Tung Chung. In the course of the operation, there have been many unpleasant incidents in the process, which has transformed the incident from a simple livelihood issue into a political farce, which has caused chaos in the community. For example, some participants once blocked a mainland female leader and made her emotional tears. Participants with action were even more suspected of being attacked by the police for ordinary attacks.
Regardless of the starting point of the operation, these incidents will definitely hit Hong Kong's image in the minds of passengers and send out the wrong message of "exclusion". In addition to the appearance of Tan Kaibang in this political farce, another eye-catching figure is Wang Jinyang, who is a member of the "Tung Chung People" organization after the umbrella. He first entered the public eye because of his identity as a resident of Tung Chung. The decision to apply for judicial review in the High Court of the People’s Republic of China to overturn the construction of the third runway of the airport. In 2015, he was selected as Tung Chung South at the age of 21 and challenged the DAB Zhou Haoding. He lost only 244 votes. This year, he made a comeback and challenged each other again.
In fairness, the political stance of the district board members is understandable. The enthusiasm of Tan Kaibang and Wang Jinwen for community affairs cannot be denied. Wang Jinwen’s political platform focuses on issues of concern to local residents such as regional prices and transportation. However, if you take the position to overstep rationality when participating in public affairs governance, it is definitely not conducive to promoting the healthy development of society. It is easy to incite emotions and encourage hatred among different groups in society. It is a common political skill, but it is very difficult to repair the relationship afterwards. When district board members blindly advocate a radical political proposition, they only doubt whether they are suitable to serve the community. If the next District Council is presided over by extremes, political leadership and extreme exclusion, this is not only a blessing for Hong Kong, but also a starting point for the community to slip down the political bonfire.
(This year, Tan Kaibang was re-elected in Mawan, with opponents Huang Junyang and Lunzhiwei respectively; Wang Jinyang was selected in Tung Chung South, and the opponents in the same district were Zhou Haoding, Li Yongan and Liu Yongxian respectively)
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