Hong Kong's pan-democrats must learn the art of compromise if they are true champions of democracy
John Chan says the pan-democrats who plan to veto the government's political reform package because it is imperfect would be ignoring the history of change, where compromises abound
Regardless of how undemocratic the political reform package may seem to the pan-democrats, in deciding to veto any proposal formulated n the basis of Beijing's August 31 decision, the legislators face two dilemmas.
First, no one can deny that the proposed reform package allowing 5 million eligible voters to cast their vote is a great improvement over the election by 1,200 selected voters. Vetoing such a package means denying 5 million people the right to vote. Pan-democrat lawmakers owe the Hong Kong people a persuasive explanation as to why they should decide to deny this right even before the second consultation process starts.
Second, the National People's Congress Standing Committee decision has made it abundantly clear that any Legislative Council election reform can only happen after universal suffrage for the chief executive election is in place. Vetoing the chief executive election reform would mean Legco election reform is frozen, and that means the continued existence of functional constituencies, a system the pan-democrats abhor most. So pan-democrat legislators also owe the people, and their supporters, a persuasive explanation for the inconsistency of their stand.
History shows that the road to democracy is never flat and wide. In the process, compromises abound, often out of strategic need and sometimes on principle.
Take the drafting of the US Constitution. The Americans took 10 years after gaining independence in 1776 to draft it, based on the Articles of Confederation signed by the 13 states that formed the loosely knitted union.
In the Constitutional Convention of 1787 at Philadelphia, a deadlock on the composition of the proposed state legislature prevented the constitution from being drawn up. The more populous states favoured a bicameral legislature with the number of seats allocated to each state proportional to its population. Less-populous states feared this would result in their voices and interests being overwhelmed and thus proposed a single house legislature with equal seats for each state.
A compromise emerged, under which the US Congress would be composed of the House of Representatives, with the number of seats allocated to the states proportional to the population of each state, and a Senate, where each state would have an equal number of seats. This "Great Compromise", as it is known, led to the US Constitution being drawn up.