Author: Lingde Studio, Kevin Chen
After completing the amendment in May, the Hong Kong government finally arranged for the first district councillors to take the oath last Friday. Leaving aside the fact that Tsai Wasqiang was DQ for refusing to take the oath, 17 of the 24 district councillors who took the oath were confirmed to be valid, and 7 district councillors were ultimately unable to pass the test after the Hong Kong government requested additional information, and as a result, they were ruled by the inmates on Wednesday that the oath was invalid, and they were both DQ and could not run for 5 years.
It is no secret that the results of this oath convey several important messages. First of all, among the 17 district councillors who have been confirmed to be valid in the oath this time, 7 are non-pro-establishment figures, reflecting that under the implementation of the "Hong Kong National Security Law" and the new political order after the election reform, there is still a space for non-establishment factions to participate in politics, and it also reflects that some people's worries that "will not be clear" after the July speech of Hong Kong and Macao Office Director Xia Baolong are really unfounded.
To some extent, since these seven non-pro-establishment district councillors were able to pass the oath this time, if they intended to participate in the Legislative Council election in December this year and could obtain enough votes for the nomination of the Electoral Commission, they would be eligible to run. At the same time, two of the 7 non-establishment legislators who took the oath this time belong to the Democratic Party, which also means that the Democratic Party still has room for survival under the new election system.
However, although the Democratic Party still has political living space in the future, it does not mean that they are willing to seize the opportunity to run for election this time, because according to media reports, the Democratic Party has differences on the issue of running for election, and Su Yiheng, who was DQ this time, has always been regarded as a "candidate", and earlier he also fled Hong Kong because he laughed at the vice chairman of the "retired faction", Li Yongda, and broke out into a scolding war with other party members. Now that Su Yiheng has been DQ, if other "candidates" are also DQ, the Democratic Party will naturally be under the control of the "withdrawn faction" and will not send people to run.
Speaking of Su Yiheng being DQed, in fact, like the other six non-established district councillors who were DQ, he has participated in the "35+" primary election, or has borrowed the parliament office as a primary ballot station, and this result reflects that there have been media relays that four categories of people, including assisting in the primary election, will be DQ. As the Hong Kong government has not yet announced when the remaining three groups of district councillors will take the oath, other non-pro-establishment district councillors who have assisted in the primary election will have the opportunity to resign at this time.
Of course, whether anyone resigns after the first district councillors take the oath of office depends largely on whether the Hong Kong government will recover their salaries since they took office, or at least after they have participated in or assisted in the primary elections, after the seven district councillors have been DQed. After all, a large number of district councillors resigned because of the news quoted by the media that the district councillors who were DQ would be charged their salaries since taking office, and if the Hong Kong government did not do so now, there was no need for non-establishment district councillors who had the opportunity to be DQ.
In addition, the non-establishment faction also has the opportunity to make a big fuss about this, saying that some people in the Hong Kong government have deliberately "released materials" and fooled them into resigning. Democratic Party Chairman Lo Kin-hee and Sham Shui Po District Councillor Yuen Hae-man have made similar criticisms. Therefore, if the news relayed by the media earlier is really someone in the Hong Kong government, it should "do what it says", regardless of the final judgment of the court, and should also file a lawsuit to recover the salary after the DQ District Councillors took office, or at least after they participated in or assisted in the primary election.
This article was originally published in Orange News, originally titled "Revelations of the Results of the Oath of the First District Councillors".