Veteran members of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, which announced on Thursday that it would take initial steps to disband, are split over the decision.
Speaking during a Commercial Radio programme on Friday, founding member Fred Li said he was left “with no other choice” but to vote in favour, while former chair Emily Lau said she hoped the party would not dissolve.
The party announced late on Thursday that it would set up a special task force to discuss legal and financial matters on its disbandment, three decades after it was established.
Party chair Lo Kin-hei said that the party’s central committee had considered the “overall political environment” in making its decision.
The motion to dissolve the city’s largest pro-democracy party will be subject to a vote by party members at a general meeting. The party will officially disband if more than three-quarters of party members present at a future meeting vote for its dissolution.
Li, one of the founding members of the Democratic Party, said in a Commercial Radio programme that his Chinese Communist Party contact had previously raised doubts about whether the party could last until the upcoming Legislative Council election this December.
“I asked one thing, ‘Will the Democratic Party be able to nominate [members] for the December [LegCo] election?’ And they answered: ‘You think you can last until December?’” Li recounted. “To put it more harshly, he was saying: ‘Pack it up.’”
Recalling how the party pushed for reforms in the legislature, Li said: “The Democratic Party has done its duty and shone its light on Hong Kong. But we can see today that that light has faded.”
He added, “I can only say that nothing can be done about it. It’s a sign of the times.”
Asked whether he would vote in favour of dissolving the party, Li said: “I will. With a heavy heart, and with no choice but to do so, I will vote in favour.”
Former chair opposes closure
However, Lau – who served as party chair from December 2012 to December 2016 – said she did not support the move to dissolve the pro-democracy party.
She said the move came as a surprise to her, as a change of term for the party’s executive committee had just taken effect last December, with Lo re-elected as chair.
She also hoped the party could take into account public opinion. “Party members and the public want to know what’s happening,” she said.
But Lau said she was worried that no one would conduct the research, especially after Robert Chung of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) had been taken in twice by national security police for questioning.
PORI announced last week that it would suspend all self-funded research and may “even close down.”
Also speaking in the same radio programme on Friday, Lo said that the party received an email from the authorities on February 13, inviting them to meet a tax officer to talk about the upcoming government budget.
However, they received another email from the government on Saturday, informing them that the meeting was called off due to a scheduling conflict with another meeting, he said.
Asked whether the meeting cancellation had anything to do with the party’s recent activities, Lo said that the party had not had effective communications with the government over the past few years.
