Legco Tussles Delay Election Of Five Panel Heads

Pro-democracy lawmakers have continued their delaying tactics at the Legislative Council, successfully delaying the elections of new chairs for five Legco panels until at least next week.

On Thursday, the pan-democrats also managed to slow down proceedings by raising procedural questions and nominating multiple candidates to be panel chairpersons.

This continued on Friday and, at some meetings, they even tried to nominate rival lawmakers to draw out the procedures.

Pan-democratic lawmakers have only managed to hang on to the chairmanship of the welfare panel, and win the chair of the IT panel.

The pro-establishment camp is expected to hold the helm of most of the 18 Legco panels. Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Alice Mak said the signals from these panel meetings show it will be a difficult year ahead for the council.

"When you look at the panel chairman elections, we expect more challenges in the coming year," she said.

Mak appealed to pan-democrats not to delay business involving livelihood issues.

But the NeoDemocrats' Gary Fan said his camp will do all it can to push back against "evil bills and wasteful projects".