Can Hong Kong’s activists for self-determination get a second chance in politics?
- Recent spate of disqualifications may show an administration taking seriously President Xi Jinping’s warning not to cross ‘red line’ of threatening sovereignty
The summer of 2016 began on a bright note for Hongkonger Edward Leung Tin-kei. Then 25, he was hopeful of a breakthrough in the Legislative Council elections after making a huge impression on voters in a by-election five months earlier.
But dark clouds soon gathered over his candidacy as he found himself having to recant his position on independence for Hong Kong.
Facing a sea of cameras, the poster boy for Hong Kong independence told the press: “If I continue to take the moral high ground, I will be barred from entering the legislature as they wish.”
For good measure, a defiant Leung added: “In the end, I reckon the means are not as important as the end.”
He soon found himself barred from being a candidate, after the returning officer declared that his U-turn was insincere.
Like Leung, the pan-democratic camp’s top choice for the November by-election in Kowloon West was knocked out because she once advocated self-determination for Hong Kong, never mind that she was cleared to run in the 2016 race while maintaining that position.
