The political storm that had enveloped Hong Kong for the last two years has finally ended - for now at least - after the regional government's electoral reform proposal was vetoed by lawmakers in June.
The city's political future remains uncertain, as the local government has pledged to shift its focus onto rebuilding the region's shaken economy, leaving unanswered the question of where Hong Kong is heading politically.
Local politicians and mainland analysts have argued that the recent twists and turns reflect deep-rooted problems that Hong Kong needs to address, but many remain optimistic that Hong Kong will get a second chance for universal suffrage, when the time is right.
Unwilling to compromise
"The core reason [why the proposal was rejected] was that there is a mismatch between the pan-democratic lawmakers' expectation [for their ideal electoral framework] and the bottom line of the central government," Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, president of the Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), told the Global Times in a recent interview.
Tsang has witnessed the development of the region's political reform, from the decision released by the mainland's top legislative body to the city's election framework, the unraveling of the Occupy Central protests and finally chairing the meeting that took the historic vote.
He said, unlike some others, that insufficient time being set aside for negotiations is not the reason the proposal was vetoed as at the time of the vote it had been more than half a year since the National People's Congress' "August 31 decision" on the nature of political reform was released, and during that time both local and central government officials repeatedly stated that the proposal will not be altered.
Rather than spending time discussing the reform and trying to reach a consensus, Tsang said that both the local government and the pan-democratic lawmakers instead focused on simply fighting for public opinion.
"There were two ways to drum up the pan-democrats' support for the proposal, with one being making concessions such as setting up a consultation committee for the further development of election methods, and another being pressuring them with the possibility that they will lose public support if they vote down the plan," Tsang said, adding that the local government focused more energy on pressuring the opposition parties than offering concessions.
Poll results show that despite more than half of Hong Kong's population supporting the proposed reforms, at least one-third of eligible voters strongly opposed the plan, which dissuaded the pan-democratic lawmakers from reversing their stance for fear of losing this group's support.
"They may have thought that people who supported the government proposal are mostly supporters of the pro-establishment lawmakers, who couldn't have been won over even if they had changed their stance and supported the proposal," Tsang said. "On the other hand, people who opposed the plan are generally supporters of the pan-democratic camp, which means that the lawmakers may have lost their supporters if they had changed their stance."
An ongoing saga
The latest round of reform is simply the most recent episode in Hong Kong's decades-long march toward universal suffrage.
In 2010, the Hong Kong government released a proposal regarding modifying the arrangements for electing the Chief Executive and the composition and electoral method for the city's legislature in 2012. Despite the pan-democratic camp attacking the proposal as a rehash of one already rejected in 2005 after the government declined to provide a concrete timetable for the introduction of universal suffrage, the proposal was finally passed due to last-minute support offered by the Democratic Party.
"The pan-democratic camp today lacks a leader such as Szeto Wah (former president of The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China) who has the vision and guts to reject radical opinions and stand by his principles," Tsang noted. "The Democratic Party's decision to support the government in 2010 drew widespread criticism from inside the camp. But it was widely believed to have been driven by Szeto who believed that it was better to accept the proposal."
The Democratic Party today has chosen to go against the reform plan. Moderate pan-democratic lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah had to leave the Civic Party, which he co-founded, after he grew frustrated with his fellow pan-democrats' unwillingness to support the proposal.
"Pan-democratic leaders nowadays have ceded control over the democracy movement to the young radicals, as we have seen from groups like Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students seizing control of the Occupy Central protests," Lau Siu-kai, a vice-chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, told the Global Times.
Both Tsang and Lau believe that Hong Kong's political atmosphere in recent years, influenced by Occupy Central and the "Hong Kong independence" movement, has eroded the central government's trust and confidence in the region's ability to handle full democracy.
A second chance
Despite the gloomy picture, analysts believe that a second chance still awaits Hong Kong when the central authorities feel it is ready and are comfortable with trying reform again.
"It is enshrined in the Basic Law that Hong Kong will eventually have universal suffrage. But political conditions have to become more favorable before the city can resume the reform process," Tian Feilong, a law professor at Beihang University in Beijing, told the Global Times.
As the "August 31 decision" is the legal framework of Hong Kong's universal suffrage, Tian believes that the city can restart reform when the majority of the Hong Kong society accepts and supports the government's decision on the nature of electoral reform, and when opposition parties have improved their relations with the central government.
"The results of the upcoming District Council elections in November and the LegCo elections next year will be key indicators of the opinions of Hong Kong society," Tian said.
Tian believes that after the reform plan was vetoed, the pan-democratic camp lost their focus as well as angering many of those who supported the reform proposal.
A "third power" is emerging, according to Tian, referring to moderate politicians who are more capable of uniting Hong Kong. "Just as Tong said when he left the Civic Party, Hong Kong's democracy movement has come to a dead end. The rise of the moderate forces like Tong and Tsang will help society to reach a consensus," Tian noted.
