Guest Comments by Audrey Eu

Editor's Note: The writer leads the Civic Party, a political group at the forefront in Hong Kong’s long battle for universal suffrage. Five pro-democracy legislators have resigned to force Hong Kong-wide by-elections as a referendum on the need for valid universal suffrage by no later than 2012. A pro-Beijing rival party, the DAB, has vowed to boycott the by-elections.

HONG KONG -- The purpose of the Hong Kong-wide Five District Referendum Movement is to enable the public to have a real and direct say in the critical issue of “implementing real universal suffrage and abolishing functional constituencies without delay”.

The government of Hong Kong pretends to consult the public on the way forward for democratic reform, but refuses to let the public have a say on this critical issue of whether functional constituency seats eventually will be abolished. This lies at the heart of whether the proposals put forward by the local government and an increase in functional constituency seats actually lead toward or away from real universal suffrage.

We aren’t surprised to learn of a DAB announcement that they will boycott the by-elections and the referendum movement. Like the government, they are afraid of allowing the public to have a real and direct say. They hope that by refusing to take part, they will depress the voter turnout.

We call on Hong Kong people not to lower their guard. We expect criticisms and attacks to continue to come our way. No doubt, there will be other by-election contestants, some maybe supported by those now claiming to boycott the referendum movement. So we see no need to change our target of a 50-per-cent voter turnout.

Without open participation by the pro-establishment forces, the referendum’s nature becomes even clearer as a vote on the main issue. We call on everyone who supports real universal suffrage not to miss this unprecedented opportunity to speak by ballot box.

ARCHIVES