Hong Kong: 5 District Referendum Movement · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

In order to advocate the implementation of universal suffrage and abolition of functional constituencies in Hong Kong, the Civic Party (CP) and the League of Social Democrats (LSD) launched the 5 district referendum movement through the resignation of 5 legislators in 5 election districts. Candidates from the 2 parties will run in the by-election and invite Hong Kong people to vote for genuine democratic reform. The election date has been set on May 16.
As the China Government openly criticized the 5 district referendum movement a violation of Basic Law, instead of encouraging citizens to execute their rights, SAR government officials stressed that the 5 district referendum would divide the society and for the first time, the government's TV election advertisement does not urge citizen to cast the vote.
The pro-establishment and pro-China party (DAB) and Liberal Party (LP) boycotted the election and criticized it a waste of tax payers’ money. On the other hand, the pan-democrats split up on the referendum movement: Democratic Party (DP) along with a number of independent pan-dem legislators refused to join in, believing that they can strike for a better reform package through talks. They established the Alliance for Universal Suffrage to communicate with the government and pro-establishment parties but there isn't any space for negotiation so far. The government still refuses to draw a roadmap towards genuine universal suffrage.
The recent Government proposal on 2012 political reforms have not reduced the proportion of Functional Constituencies in the Legislative Council. The reform package adds ten seats in the 2012 legislature, of which 5 seats are from district direct election and the other five seats will be elected by District Council members through “proportional representation”, which implies that the pro-establishment party DAB (Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong) will get a majority of the 5 seats as they are more resourceful in community work.
In order to create a voting opportunity, a number of University Student Unions form a 2012 Universal Suffrage Alliance and back up 5 student candidates to participate in the by-election. The alliance believes that social injustice in the city comes from the collusion between the political and economic privileged groups and the Functional Constituencies is the result of such political corruption. Their declaration, distributed via facebook and various websites states that:
不平等的政治制度，實質上就是維護著大財團和政府官僚的勾結。事實上，功能組別不斷在議會裡阻礙著利民政策通過──而這些利民政策，根本不違反挑戰現時社會整體發展方向，只為了在資源、財富分配極度不均的情況下，為勞苦大眾討回一點公道而已。這些利民政策包括立法最低工資、公平競爭法、回購領匯、屏風樓、監管私樓物業交易……而近日關於最低工資的討論，便可見一斑。
The student alliance then proposes a series of reform in areas such as taxation and education and stresses the inter connection between people's livelihood and democratic reform.
To encourage more people to vote on 16 of May, Civic Party produces a video juxtaposing the personal history of an old man with the political history of Hong Kong. The video has been widely circulated online and below is a translation of the script:
我叫葉國華，今年已經六十幾歲，年紀大了，開始遺忘很多事情。但耳邊依然徘徊著八九年的春天，太太彌留之際留下的叮嚀。要看著孩子成家立室。要看到回歸的煙花盛放。要睇到千禧年的日出。當日她的數個願望，大多數已經實現。轉睇間廿多年過去了，香港的變化看似很多，又似是很少。再不見在街遊玩的小孩，只剩下為供樓捱更抵夜的父母。以前跟太太約會的地方，很多已拆掉，悄悄地消失。換上冷冰冰的商場大廈。不少志同道合的老朋友，已經走了。當年躺在病床的她，曾經很有信心地說，不出二十年，香港人一定見到真民主。我笑她的率直，更笑她的保守，今天打開報紙，很可惜，看到的仍然是荒謬，代表少數人的議員，壓倒七百萬普羅大眾的聲音，在這個開放的社會，竟然有人自鳴得意地說：八百人選出來的特首有廣泛代表性。
1990年頒布基本法，承諾特首以及立法會最終由普選產生
1997年四百人小圈子選舉產生的董建華就任特首
2004年人大釋法否決0708雙普選
2007年曾蔭權承諾在普選問題上玩鋪勁
2009年政府翻訂政改方案普選步伐停滯不前
2010年功能組別至今未取消
但我從來無懷疑過，亦無放棄過，因為在我身邊的香港人，仍然肯為民主發聲，仍然有很多辦法。太太曾經說過，無人可以肯定未來，更加無人可以否定未來。只要聽到群眾的聲音，相信手中的一票，我知道成功就在眼前。五。
一六投民主一票。盡快實現真普選，廢除功能組別。
Vote for democracy in May 16. Abolition of the Functional Constituencies for genuine democracy.
As a result of the boycott from pro-establishment, the referendum movement does not have much mainstream media coverage and informations on election forum are mainly distributed via Facebook. There are various groups on Facebook for collecting campaign informations and posters:
HK5Vote channel: a collection of video materials on the campaign
Referendum for democracy: a collection of media reports and material about the movement
May 16 voting handbook: to mobilize people to vote on May 16