Hong Kong’s last opposition party votes to disband under China pressure

HONG KONG - Hong Kong's last major opposition party moved to disband on Dec 14 after a vote by its members, the culmination of Chinese pressure on the city’s remaining liberal voices in a years-long security crackdown.

The Democratic Party, founded three years before Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule from Britain in 1997,

has been the city's flagship opposition

. It used to sweep city-wide legislative elections and push Beijing on ​democratic reforms ​and upholding freedoms.

However, mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 against a perceived tightening of China’s grip on the city prompted Beijing to enact a sweeping national security law to stifle dissent.

On Dec 14, members of the Democratic Party voted to disband the party and to enter liquidation, its chairman Lo Kin-hei told reporters after an extraordinary general meeting.

“To have journeyed through these three decades, shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong, has been our greatest honour. Throughout these years, we have always treated the well-being of Hong Kong and its people as our guiding purpose,” he said.

Of 121 votes cast, 117 voted to disband while four abstained.

Senior party members say they had been approached by Chinese officials or middlemen and warned to disband or face severe consequences, including possible arrests.

Ms Emily Lau, a former Democratic Party chairwoman, expressed regret at the vote’s outcome.

“Why does an organisation that has done so much for Hong Kong need to end like this? I find it very problematic,” she said.

Under the

“one country, two ​systems”

arrangement, Hong Kong is promised a high degree of autonomy and freedoms under Chinese rule. But in recent years, the authorities have used the security law to arrest scores of democrats and shutter civil society groups and liberal media outlets.

“We were never able to have democracy. We never had the chance to elect our government... We hope it (the principle of one country, two systems) won’t keep shrinking more and more. We hope there won’t be more and more people being arrested,” Ms Lau said.

The vote on ending three decades of opposition party politics in the China-run city comes a week after ​Hong Kong held a “patriots-only” legislative council election and one day before media mogul and China critic Jimmy Lai

receives a verdict in a landmark national security trial

.

Beijing's move in 2021 to overhaul the city's electoral system –

allowing only those vetted as “patriots” to run

for public office – marginalised the party by removing it from mainstream politics.

In June, another pro-democracy group, the League of Social Democrats,

said it would shut down

amid “immense political pressure”.

Senior Democratic Party members Wu Chi-wai, Albert Ho, Helena Wong and Lam Cheuk-ting have ​been jailed or held in custody under a national security law that China imposed in 2020 in response to

mass pro-democracy protests

​the year before.

Some governments, including the US and Britain, have criticised this security law, saying it has been used to stifle dissent and individual freedoms.

Beijing, however, says no freedoms are absolute and that the national security law has restored stability to Hong Kong. REUTERS