Exiting Legco Won't Mean The End For Us: Civic Party

The Civic Party said on Thursday that it expects to be banished completely from the Legislative Council, but vowed this will not mean an end to its campaign for democracy in Hong Kong.

Serving lawmakers Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok and Kwok Ka-ki, along with the party's Tat Cheng are among 12 members of the opposition camp who have been disqualified from the Legco polls slated for September 6.

Returning officers ruled they would not uphold the Basic Law, accusing them of having solicited foreign interference in Hong Kong, opposing the national security law, and intending to abuse the legislative process if elected, by indiscriminately rejecting all government proposals.

Party chair Alan Leong said it appears unlikely that their two remaining election hopefuls, Jeremy Tam and Gordon Lam, will be allowed to stand in the polls either, and any backup candidates from the party would most likely be banned as well.

But the party said its existence is not confined to Legco, and it will continue its work outside the legislature.

"When the regime wishes to enslave us, the best thing to do is to stand firm and tell the regime we would not change," said Kwok Ka-ki.

Yeung said that by screening out would-be candidates, the authorities are depriving voters of their right to choose who represents them in Legco.

He said the disqualifications show that the authorities are in fear of the SAR's opposition camp since its success in last year's district council elections, and after hundreds of thousands voted in recent primaries to choose pro-democracy candidates for the Legco polls.

"Those who are in control of this disqualification, they are probably very worried about us," he said.

"After the primaries, you can see a huge turnout, you can see Hong Kong people are so united. And so after last November, they thought hey, maybe we should not do something similar again. So they have to disqualify people on such a mass scale. This is a clear reflection of the fact that they, not us, are in fear."