League of Social Democrats

The League of Social Democrats (LSD) is a social democratic political party in Hong Kong established in 2006. Chaired by Raphael Wong, it currently holds no seat in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong after the disqualification of its sole legislator Leung Kwok-hung, the key person in the party.

League of Social Democrats

社會民主連線
AbbreviationLSD
ChairmanRaphael Wong
Vice-ChairmanLeung Kwok-hung
Jimmy Sham
Founded1 October 2006
HeadquartersFlat B2, 4/F, Tai Cheong
Factory Building,
3 Wing Ming Street,
Cheung Sha Wan,
Kowloon
IdeologySocial democracy[1]
Direct democracy[2]
Left-wing populism[2]
Political positionCentre-left to left-wing
Regional affiliationPro-democracy camp
Colours     Red
Legislative Council
0 / 70
District Councils
2 / 479
Website
www.lsd.org.hk
League of Social Democrats
Traditional Chinese社會民主連線
Simplified Chinese社会民主连线
Politics and government
of Hong Kong
Related topics
 Hong Kong portal

It was established in 2006 by a group of social democrat activists within the pro-democracy camp. It positions itself as a pro-grassroots clearcut opposition party which is devoted to "street actions" and "parliamentary struggles". It reached its peak in the 2008 Legislative Council election in which it received ten per cent of the popular votes and won three seats.

In 2010, the party launched the "Five Constituencies Referendum" to pressure the government to implement universal suffrage in 2012. After the flagship pro-democracy party Democratic Party made a compromise with the government over the constitutional reform proposal, the party suffered a devastating defeat as two of the three legislators left the party to form People Power over the dispute whether to spine the Democrats in the following 2011 District Council election.

The League resumed a co-operative relationship with the People Power in filibustering in the legislature. In the 2016 Legislative Council election, two parties formed an electoral alliance and received seven percent, which saw the party's only legislator Leung Kwok-hung re-elected in New Territories East. After Leung was disqualified from the Legislative Council in 2017 over the oath-taking controversy, the League was ousted from all elected offices.

Party beliefs

The LSD was considered to be the "radical wing" of the pro-democracy camp by its political beliefs and tactics. It was formed by legislators, social activists and grassroots residents. It aims to be a "clear-cut opposition party" and defend the interests of the grassroots. It opposes the wealth inequality created by collusions between the government and corporations. It positions itself as a social democratic party and believes that a just society can be achieved by redistribution of wealth, economic intervention and direct democracy.[2]

Tactics

Protests

Members of the party pioneered the use of theatrics and disruptive tactics in Hong Kong. Heckling and the throwing of projectiles have since become a frequent occurrence at Legislative Council and public meetings. Their members have been ejected from LegCo meetings on numerous occasions. At a Legislative council meeting on 15 October 2008, during the Policy Address given by then Chief Executive Donald Tsang, party chairman Wong Yuk-man threw a banana at Tsang in protest at the means test of "fruit money" (Old Age Allowance) for the elderly.

At the opening of an exhibition at the Museum of History on 2 March 2011, Steve Wong Chun-kit, member of the League of Social Democrats rushed at Donald Tsang. Protesters also threw cooked rice at Tsang, as a symbol of the plight of the poor, but missed him. Tsang said his chest was hit by the protestor and had a medical check at the Queen Mary Hospital afterwards. Tsang denounced the protest, saying that violence was unacceptable in Hong Kong, where civilised behaviour and the rule of law were fundamental values. However Leung Kwok-hung said he did not see any physical contact between Tsang and protesters. Steve Wong was arrested and released on bail.[3]

At CY Leung's first question-and-answer session as Chief Executive at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on 16 July 2012, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung threw an effigy of Pinocchio at CY Leung.[4]

Leung Kwok-hung threw a cloud-shaped cushion at Financial Secretary John Tsang during his budget report in the Legislative Council on 27 February 2013 to demand for a universal retirement protection scheme.[5]

At a political forum on 7 December 2013, one member was captured by the media throwing a Lufsig, a cuddly toy wolf at CY Leung.[6]

Filibusters

In May 2012, Leung Kwok-hung, the only LSD member in the Legislative Council joined a weeks-long filibuster staged by Albert Chan and Wong Yuk-man, who were LSD legislators but defected to the People Power, submitting 1306 amendments altogether to the Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill 2012, by which the government attempted to forbid resigning lawmakers from participating in by-elections as the government's response to the "Five Constituency Referendum movement" launched by the LSD in 2010. On the morning of 17 May 2012, Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, President of the Legislative Council adopt Article 92 of the Standing Order, which allows the president follow foreign parliament rules for unregulated behaviours to terminate the debate. In the end, all amendments were defeated and the Bill was passed.

In May 2013, the LSD and People Power staged a month-long filibuster by moving a total of 710 amendments on the Budget Appropriation Bill debate, to press for a universal pension scheme and a HK$10,000 cash handout to be included in John Tsang's budget.[7] The government warned that the service would shut down if the budget bill do not pass. Jasper Tsang ordered to end the filibuster on 13 May after 55 hours spent to debate 17 of the 148 amendments.[8] The Appropriation Bill was passed on 21 May 2013 with 684 amendments negatived.[9]

History

Founding and early years (2006–2010)

The LSD was founded on 1 October 2006. The two Legislative Councillors, Leung Kwok-hung, activist from the April Fifth Action Group, and Albert Chan, former Democratic Party member, were the founding members. Radio host, author and former journalism professor Wong Yuk-man became the first Chairman of the party.

In the participation in the 2007 Chief Executive Election of Alan Leong, the League of Social Democrats refused to co-operate with the Democratic Party and the Civic Party and criticised the two parties for nominating Leong as Chief Executive candidate, saying that they are not qualified as democrats.[10] In the 2006 Election Committee election, the League was criticised by media for refusing to name a candidate in protest at the "small-circle election".

The LSD won six seats its first attempt in the election in the 2007 District Council elections. In late December 2007, the Vice-Chairman of the party, Lo Wing-lok, resigned after a controversy over the lack of documentation on the lease of the party headquarters. According to Lo, the premises belonged to an alleged triad member who claimed to be a merchant.[11]

In the 2008 LegCo elections, the party emerged as the sixth largest party in the legislature by gaining over 10 percent of the vote and winning total of three seats with chairman Wong Yuk-man winning a seat in the Kowloon West geographical constituency and Leung Kwok-hung and Albert Chan retained their seats respectively. The LSD fiercely criticised the other democratic parties during the campaign. In Kowloon East Andrew To Kwan-hang has accused the Democratic Party of wrongly backing the government's move to privatise the Link Reit Investment Trust, thus paving the way for hefty rent rises in public housing commercial and parking facilities. In Kowloon West, Chairman Wong Yuk-man lambasted the Civic Party's Claudia Mo Man-ching in the same way he did the candidates from the pro-Beijing, pro-government flagship party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), accusing the Civic Party of applying double standards in its fight for democracy, and being elitist.[12]

2010 electoral reform and splits (2010–2016)

The party was member of the Alliance for Universal Suffrage which consisted of all the pro-democracy groups to strive for the 2012 universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and Legislative Council. In response to the electoral reform package proposed by the government, the party joined hand with the Civic Party to launch the "Five Constituency Referendum" by having five legislators resigning and participating in a territory-wide by-election to demand genuine universal suffrage. The claim of by-election as referendum expectedly received serve attacks from the Beijing government and the pro-Beijing camp in Hong Kong as unconstitutional.[13] The Democratic Party refused to join the movement and sought for a less confrontational way to negotiate with Beijing. The movement was considered as failure with only 17.7 percent of the registered voters voted despite all three LSD legislators successfully returned to the LegCo.[13] The LSD strongly criticised the Democratic Party for its move to negotiate with Beijing and voted for the reform package and attacked the Democratic Party in the following 2010 July 1 march.

The party was also heavily devastated from the intra-party struggles. The former chairman Wong Yuk-man disagreed with the policies of the incumbent chairman Andrew To including the ways of dealing with the Democratic Party. In November 2010, Wong Yuk-man's protege Edward Yum led a no-confidence motion against To which was defeated by 111 to 170 at an extraordinary general party meeting.[14] After the failure of toppling To's chairmanship, on 24 January 2011, two of the three legislators of the party, Wong Yuk-man and Albert Chan quit the party with many party's leading figures, citing disagreement with leader Andrew To and his faction. About two hundreds of their supporters joined them, leaving the LSD in disarray.[15][16] Wong and Chan formed the People Power with other defected members and radical groups which aimed at sniping Democratic Party in the upcoming 2011 District Council elections.[17]

The party lost all its seats in the District Councils in the District Council elections in November, all four of the party's seats were swept by the pro-Beijing candidates, including that of Andrew To for Chuk Yuen North constituency. 23 other League candidates also failed to win. Two days later, Andrew To resigned as chairman, to take responsibility for the loss, but pledged not to alter the LSD's ideology for the sake of winning elections.[18] Leung Kwok-hung replaced To as the Chairman of the LSD.

Ousted from Legislative Council and further political developments (2016–present)

In February 2016, the party selected its sixth Executive Committee and new leaders. Avery Ng succeeded Leung as the new chairman and Raphael Wong and Derek Chan Tak-cheung as vice-chairman.[19]

In the 2016 Legislative Council election, the LSD formed an electoral alliance with another radical democrat People Power as they were facing serious challenges from the newly emerging radical localists. The alliance won two seats in total with sole League legislator Leung Kwok-hung and People Power's Ray Chan being re-elected in the New Territories East. Former LSD legislator Albert Chan failed to help LSD's Raphael Wong to be elected despite him standing as a second candidate in the New Territories West. LSD chairman Avery Ng also lost his bid in Kowloon West.

In the 2017 Chief Executive election, LSD legislator Leung Kwok-hung launched his Chief Executive bid in February 2017 through a "public nomination" mechanism, in which he would seek to secure 37,790 votes from members of the public, one per cent of the city's registered voters before he would canvass for the nominations from the Election Committee.[20] Leung dropped out from the race on 25 February after failed to gain enough nominations from the public, secured only 20,234 nominations.[21]

In July 2017, Leung Kwok-hung was unseated with three other pro-democracy legislators due to their manners at the oath-taking ceremony at the inaugural meeting, where Leung had used it as a platform to protest since he was first elected in 2004, which made the LSD lost its only seat in the legislature.[22]

In 2019, in the aftermath of the massive Hong Kong pro-democracy protests two prominent members of LSD namely, political and LGBT activist Jimmy Sham and Citizens' Radio founder Tsang Kin-shing were elected in the 2019 District Council elections as part of the electoral landslide by the pro-democracy camp. In spite of this, Leung Kwok-hung was narrowly defeated in his bid to unseat incumbent lawmaker Starry Lee in the To Kwa Wan North in the Kowloon City District Council.[23]

Performance in elections

Chief Executive elections
Election Candidate # of votes % of vote
2017 Leung Kwok-hung Not nominated

Legislative Council elections
Election Number of
popular votes		 % of
popular votes		 GC
seats		 FC
seats		 Total seats +/− Position
2008 153,390 10.12 3 0
3 / 60
 1 6th
2012 87,997 4.86 1 0
1 / 70
 0 10th
2016 PP/LSD ticket 1 0
1 / 70
 0 10th

District Council elections
Election Number of
popular votes		 % of
popular votes		 Total
elected seats		 +/−
2007 28,601 2.51
6 / 405
 0
2011 21,833 1.85
0 / 412
 5
2015 6,526 0.45
0 / 431
 0
2019 8,384 0.29
2 / 452
 2

Leadership

Chairpersons
  • Wong Yuk-man, 2006–2010
  • Andrew To Kwan-hang, 2010–2011
    • Tang Chui-chung, acting 2011–2012
  • Leung Kwok-hung, 2012–2016
  • Avery Ng Man-yuen, 2016–2020
  • Raphael Wong Ho-ming, 2020–present

Vice-chairpersons (External Affairs)
  • Lo Wing-lok, 2006–2007
  • Andrew To Kwan-hang, 2008–2010
  • Avery Ng Man-yuen, 2012–2016
  • Raphael Wong Ho-ming, 2016–2020
  • Leung Kwok-hung, 2020–present

Vice-chairpersons (Internal Affairs)
  • Michael Mak Kwok-fung, 2006–2010
  • Lee Wai-yee, 2008–2010
  • Avery Ng Man-yuen, 2010–2012
  • Tang Chui-chung, 2012–2014
  • Raphael Wong Ho-ming, 2014–2016
  • Derek Chan Tak-cheung, 2016
  • Jaco Chow Nok-hang, 2018–2020
  • Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit, 2020–present

See also

References
  1. "關於社民連" (in Chinese). League of Social Democrats. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  2. "About Us" 關於社民連. League of Social Democrats (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 3 January 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  3. Mok, Danny; Chong, Tanna (3 March 2011). "Outrage after protester attacks Donald Tsang at gallery". South China Morning Post.
  4. "Protester hurls Pinnochio effigy at Hong Kong leader". NBC News.
  5. "Ballot boxing: Politics turns into a punch-up – 1/10". The Independent.
  6. McBain, Sophie (10 December 2013). "How Lufsig the cuddly wolf became a Hong Kong protest symbol – A short lesson in the art of mistranslating names into Chinese". The New Statesman.
  7. "Filibustering continues over budget". RTHK. 29 April 2013. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
  8. Lai, Ying-kit (13 May 2013). "Legco president Jasper Tsang orders end to budget bill filibuster". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
  9. LegCo Reporter Council Meeting 2012–2013 Issue No. 28 (21 May 2013)
  10. 社民連與民主公民兩黨割席. Sing Pao (in Chinese). 24 November 2006. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014.
  11. "RTHK Online News". Rthk.org.hk. 29 December 2007. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  12. Yeung, Chris (3 September 2008). "Infighting threatens pro-democracy camp". South China Morning Post.
  13. Lee, Francis L. F.; Chan, Joseph M. (2010). Media, Social Mobilisation and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong: The Power of a Critical Event. Routledge.
  14. Pepper, Suzanne (24 January 2011). "PARTY LINE UPDATES: Democrats in Disarray".
  15. 黃毓民倒戈 社民連分裂伙陳偉業牽頭退黨 長毛未有決定. Mingpao (in Chinese). 24 January 2011.
  16. "League on verge of collapse as heavyweights lead party exodus". South China Morning Post. 24 January 2011.
  17. 600支持者出席集思會 黃毓民、陳偉業率200人退出社民連. Apple Daily (in Chinese). 24 January 2011.
  18. "League head quits after poll disaster". Radio Television Hong Kong. 8 November 2011.
  19. "吳文遠任社民連主席". Apple Daily. 22 February 2016.
  20. "'Long Hair' Leung Kwok-hung enters chief executive race, urging allies not to vote for 'lesser evils'". South China Morning Post. 8 February 2017.
  21. "【特首選戰】長毛宣佈不參選：2萬人撐證公民提名可行". Apple Daily. 25 February 2017.
  22. "Four More Hong Kong Lawmakers Ousted In a Blow to Democratic Hopes". TIME. 17 July 2017.
  23. "Early results suggest landslide win for pan-dems". RTHK. 25 November 2019.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.