Farewell Protest Ushers In The 'new Legco'

The pan-dems briefly staged what could prove to be their last ever protest in the Legislative Council on Thursday, as business resumed without the camp – a day after the legislature was rocked by disqualifications and resignations.

Outgoing Democratic Party legislator Lam Cheuk-ting strung up two banners attacking the Chief Executive.

"Carrie Lam has brought calamity to Hong Kong and its people; her infamy will last ten thousand years," the banners read in Chinese.

Lam removed the banners himself after several minutes.

"I just want to protest against Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive, for her ridiculous disqualification of my four colleagues. I think she and the central government have already abused their power to disqualify the representatives of Hong Kong [people], which is totally unacceptable and [has] severely violated One Country, Two Systems," he said.

Lam and 14 of his colleagues were expected to hand in their resignation letters on Thursday over the disqualification of the camp's Kwok Ka-ki, Dennis Kwok, Alvin Yeung and Kenneth Leung. None of the pro-democracy councillors joined the day's full council meeting in the chamber.

Legco president Andrew Leung said he had removed from the agenda motions proposed by the four unseated lawmakers, while a motion raised by pro-government lawmaker Alice Mak to censure Dennis Kwok was also deleted.

On Wednesday, Andrew Leung suggested that the pro-establishment camp would provide all the "opposition" needed when it came to the scrutiny of government bills.

The camp's Abraham Shek for one was not pulling any punches on Thursday, as he demanded that government ministers stop giving "sloppy answers" to questions in what he described as a "new Legislative Council".

Health Secretary Sophia Chan was the particular target of Shek's anger.

He had grilled Chan on how the authorities are planning to deal with medical workers who went on strike earlier this year, but was unhappy with her answer that the Hospital Authority is yet to decide on what action to take.