Elections should continue to be used as a means of agenda setting

The Election Committee election will be held on the 19th of next month, and the nomination process will begin this Friday (6th).

Many of the democratically sent election committees of the last term indicated that they had no intention of running for re-election, including Liang Jiajie from the legal profession, Cai Jian, and Huang Renkuang from the medical profession.

Many democratic election committees also admitted that since the electoral system has changed, their participation in elections seems to have no practical significance anymore, so they would rather give up using election methods to influence the government's governance measures.

Although the new electoral system has been criticized as a "democratic regression" and "back to the 70s", Hong Kong society and even many political leaders of the democratic camp cannot but reflect on whether they are really willing to surrender the methods of influencing the social reform agenda. Give in and give up the way of election to influence the policy attitudes of different people who are willing to compete for the position of chief executive?

And does Hong Kong society formally give up participating in elections to strive for democratic development and social justice in Hong Kong?

These are undoubtedly questions that every Hong Kong person needs to ask himself.

The price of "halo" is silent on policy

Since the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed amendments to the original Annex I and Annex II of the Basic Law in March this year, Hong Kong's electoral system has indeed undergone major changes.

In the upcoming election of the Election Committee, the Election Committee will change to a large-scale election based on group votes to produce 1,500 electoral committees, that is, voters will be organized by professional organizations or grassroots organizations, such as the law and Tianjin. The Bar Association in the world is the electorate of the legal profession.

In many sectors, more than half of the election committees will also be ex-officio members. In the education sector, the principals or school committee chairpersons of 11 tertiary colleges in Hong Kong and representatives of five major school-sponsoring bodies will serve as education There are 16 ex officio members in the sector, accounting for more than half of the overall education sector election committees.

The relevant election method bid farewell to the past practice of electing professional sectors by relevant persons in the industry. It also makes the democratic parties lose their advantages in the traditionally dominant professional sectors, and even the space for competition is relatively limited.

The new electoral system is undoubtedly narrowing the political space of the democrats, but what kind of eyes do the leaders of the democrats plan to face the relevant changes?

The old-fashioned truth is that there is no electoral system in the world that conforms to the principles of absolute fairness and democracy. Most electoral systems are designed to adapt to the country's constitutional order, and any system must have its limitations.

Since there is no electoral system, it would be 100% satisfactory. If you only see that there is less political space, the rules of the game have changed, and the inability to see elections is also an important means of influencing government policies. Democratic leaders are not just Focus on the political day and night, and forget that politics is meant to improve people's lives.

Hong Kong’s electoral system has been settled, and a large number of Hong Kong people still choose to continue to work hard in Hong Kong.

If we abandon participation in the election of committee members today, and in December this year, we will also abandon the platform of the Legislative Council. In the future, we will face many social injustices. Leaders of the democrats will undoubtedly need to reflect on whether the denial of Hong Kong’s political system can bring about any change in social justice.

If you lose the opportunity to influence politicians in elections, you will only become more speechless in public policy. At the same time, if you withdraw your hands, regardless of the "aura of cleanliness," you give up the opportunity to change social policies in the future.

Do the leaders of the democrats still remember the plausible and eloquent saying "I see hope because of persistence"?

To leave the field in anger or to fight every inch of it?

Another question that Hong Kong political and social leaders must ask themselves is how to continue the democratic movement in Hong Kong.

In the past, Deng Xiaoping's basic thesis of "one country, two systems" and "Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong" is still the basic principle of the central government's Hong Kong policy, and the direction of universal suffrage promised by Beijing in the Basic Law has not changed.

Since Beijing still believes that Hong Kong still has room to implement electoral politics, the problem is only the size of the space.

Participants in the Hong Kong democracy movement cannot evade the responsibility to explore the size of Hong Kong's democratic space, and exploring the space for democratic development in Hong Kong can only be carried out by continuing to participate in elections.

If those who are aspiring to promote the development of Hong Kong's political system today abandon this exploration, Hong Kong will definitely miss the opportunity to establish a democratic system that suits Hong Kong's actual conditions under the framework of "one country, two systems."

Looking around the development of the democratic movement in history, the goal of the democratic movement is to pry open the cracks in the door, and find a democratic path that can be developed by the society in the cracks.

Many democratic leaders today are aggrieved by some of the government’s measures. However, if they leave the market just because the door is not as expected, and close the door on their own because of their stubbornness, it is like ending the democratic movement early. In the future, there is no need to talk about the opportunity to open the door.

Since that door still exists today and there are certain gaps in it, is it time to keep a cool head and continue to prepare to use elections as a means of agenda setting?

The pan-democrats should stay on the road to "community and people's livelihood". The pan-democrats should continue to participate in the election system amendment. The establishment of the pan-democracy committee should be the same as the previous class selection committee. On Friday, the committee signed up for the pro-democracy professional sector to participate in the election. Leung Jiajie and Cai Jian abandoned re-election