With the dust having settled down on the general legislative election, a new term of the Legislative Council (Legco) will begin on 1 October. Of the 70 lawmakers elected from geographical and functional constituencies, there are 27 new faces and quite many of them are young faces. This will bring changes to and make an impact on the operation of the legislature in upcoming four years and even whole society. It is thus worthy of concern and attention.
The results of the just-concluded legislative election have two features. One is that the number of voters increased by nearly 400,000, with roughly half of them supporting the establishment camp and another half the non-establishment camp. The second is that several "self-labeled localist" young people running for the legislative election for the first time were successfully elected to become "upstarts" in the legislature. The 200,000-odd votes from supporters of the non-establishment camp were mostly given to them.
Under such circumstances, there appears some view that voters sent these radical "localist" young people into the legislature because they had been dissatisfied for a long time with the government's administration and handling affairs and thus longed for changes, etc.
However, even if such a saying sounded true it is wide of the mark and hence untenable. , longing for improving administration and support to radical "localism" are two matters utterly different in nature. Radical "localism" not only won't help improve the government's administration but on the contrary will make it even more difficult and confused. If the voters cast their votes for radical "localists" with the hope for improving administration, then what they will get in future is likely nothing but disappointment.
Similarly, those elected radical "localist" young people indeed are entitled to be puffed up with pride for winning their seats and prepared to give a good account of themselves. But if they, after successfully getting their seats in Legco, still insist on flaunting what they have advocated outside the legislature, doing nothing but shouting "democratic self-determination" or "devising the constitution by all people", instead of striving to essentially and truly understand our own country, "one country two systems", the Basic Law, the legislature of the SAR and its functions derived from this constitutional document, then they are bound to accomplish nothing. Except for continuing to raise a hue and cry, no constructive result can be possibly produced.
As a matter of fact, for these newly elected radical "localist" young people, the first thing to do right now is to learn how to become a competent and qualified member of the Legco of the Hong Kong SAR of the People's Republic of China, instead of anything else. This includes to take the Legco oath when they formally walk into the chamber. The oath is:
"I swear that, being a member of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, I will uphold the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, bear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and serve the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region conscientiously, dutifully, in full accordance with the law, honestly and with integrity."
In the SAR which is a society with the rule of law, taking an oath is a serious legal act and the oath maker must be responsible for any outcome. If the radical "localist" young people would hold no slight respect for and make up their minds not to obey it when taking the oath on the day of taking office, but instead, as some individuals said yesterday, regard taking the oath as just a "procedure" for entering the legislature to achieve their goal of "self-determination" rather than an elementary "yardstick" for measuring their own deeds and words, then there could be no optimistic hope in future as regard to how the 10 powers and functions delegated to lawmakers by the Basic Law and the Legco rules of procedure would be implemented and respected, and what a positive role the legislature could play in promoting administration, economic development and improvement of people's livelihood .
07 September 2016
