Dai Qingcheng: Can the Democratic Party participate in the district council election?

Hong Kong will hold a new district council election under the "new era" in December this year, and will accept registration next month.The democratic party's largest party, the Democratic Party, had suddenly been blown up by the fundraising dinner recently, making whether the party's "entering the gate" was a hot topic for local political people.

The Democratic Party originally scheduled to hold a fundraising dinner at a hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui in early September. It opened 15 seats. Later, in view of the enthusiastic response from the outside world, it was decided to add to 20 seats.However, a few days before the dinner, the hotel suddenly canceled the Democratic party reservation on the grounds of "venue problems".

The Democratic Party was changed to a dinner at a restaurant in Ki Tak Cruise Pier, Kowloon City.Unexpectedly, after a few days, the Democratic Party received a notice from the restaurant that the banquet hall needs to be repaired and suspended after the super typhoon "Sura" hit Hong Kong. The dinner was forced to cancel again.

If it is obstructive in one or two, it may be a coincidence.But if you are rejected again and again, I am afraid it is not that simple.After checking the information, the Democratic Party planned to hold a fundraising dinner at a restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui last year, and it also encountered difficulties.The restaurant has canceled the Democratic Party's venue reservation on the grounds that there are crown disease diagnosis and cleaning near the mall.

In February this year, the Democratic Party was preparing to hold a spring dinner in a restaurant in Kwai Fang. As a result, the restaurant coincided with the Democratic Party a few days before the dinner because the "emergencies" could not provide the venue, resulting in the cancellation of the dinner.

The Democratic Party has repeatedly held banquets in the past year. It has been blown by different resistance, making more and more politicians believe that the restaurant may be under pressure from the restaurant.As the Democratic Party stated earlier that about 10 party members planned to run for the district council election at the end of the year, one of the purpose of this fundraising dinner was to raise funds for this election.The difficulty will be quite large.

In fact, since its establishment in 1994, the Hong Kong Democratic Party has advocated a gentle opposition route and is the most influential democratic party in Hong Kong.However, during the anti -repair storm in 2019, the party not only supported the demonstrators against the Hong Kong Government's repair, but some members participated in street violence more high -profile, including several Legislative Council members, including then party chairman Hu Zhiwei, were arrested, as well asThe core member Xu Zhifeng fled to Australia.The Democratic Party has not been cut with them so far, which is very dissatisfied with Beijing.

After the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2020, Hong Kong's political situation gradually stabilized, and in 2021, the first Legislative Council election was held after implementing the principle of "Patriot Governance".At that time, Beijing had had high hopes for the Democratic Party, hoping that the party could participate in the election.However, the Democratic Party did not send someone to run, and said "no" to the new election system in disguise, further deepening Beijing's negative perception of the Democratic Party.

Comprehensive information released by the recent public opinion, Beijing is likely to determine that although the Democratic Party has performed low -key in recent years, it still has not adjusted the political route of the anti -government.The district council election at the end of the year.If the news is true, it means that members of the new district council will be all "clear".

Interestingly, the internalist factions are also rumored that the central government is highly concerned about the voting rate of the election of the Hong Kong District Council, and will encourage various parties to be elected to create a competitive atmosphere of the election.If the Democratic Party cannot run, at the end of the district council election at the end of the year lacks the strong competition of the opposition, the voting rate will not be too high.

But then, this year's change of district council election, as the first new election under the "new era" in Hong Kong, has changed drastically in all aspects of members and election methods.Even if the Democratic Party can enter the gate, I am afraid that it may not help increase the voting rate.Beijing hopes that the voting rate of this district council will be less than 30 % of the last Legislative Council election, but the goal is not easy to achieve.

Generally speaking, voters vote are hoping to achieve two aspects.One is that they believe that their votes can play a role and help the candidates who want their favorite to be elected; the second is to want to affect the government's future governance through voting results.

As far as the former is concerned, Hong Kong's political environment is very different from four years ago. Most of the most radical groups of anti -government Hong Kong people have moved overseas, and most of the democratic supporters who have left.In the past few years, several elections have not participated in voting at all.The rational democratic voters will judge that a small number of supporters rely on their supporters may not be elected by the Democratic candidates, so they simply not vote.

As for the latter, in order to firmly grasp and govern Hong Kong in Beijing, Beijing has designed the new district council election system to "dripping water". In addition to introducing qualification review and internal supervision systemAs of 20 %, only very few voting opportunities are retained.This election system is far from the awareness of democracy in many Hong Kong people.Most democratic voters believe that even if democratic candidates win, it cannot affect the governance of the Hong Kong government.So even if there are Democrats who can run, it is difficult to stimulate them to vote.

If Beijing finally really fell into the gate, rejected the Democratic Party and even the entire democratic camp person to run for the election of the current district council, indicating that the official did not expect democracy to enter the gate to increase the voting rate.In fact, Beijing's original decision to implement a new Hong Kong election system should already have a low psychological preparation voting rate.Since the democratic school has no living space under the "new era", Beijing must think about how to spur the newly -owned district councilors in the next four years to double their efforts and assist the Hong Kong government to do a good job in regional service work!