No fans of Chan's analogy between helpers and councillors from establishment camp

The establishment camp is unhappy with former housing secretary Frank Chan Fan's analogy of district councillors being like domestic helpers.

Chan, currently a National People's Congress member for Hong Kong, made the remark on radio on Sunday when he likened district councillors to domestic helpers whose employment contracts stipulate their bosses can fire them for not following orders.

But establishment politicians said district councillors are not subordinate to the administration and cannot simply say yes to everything.

They argued that Chan's analogy was also inaccurate as the new monitoring system is not being introduced with the aim of firing councillors.

One establishment figure said: "We all know how highly we think of domestic helpers in Hong Kong families."

That came in the wake of the establishment forming the Hong Kong Alliance for Improving District Governance at the weekend, spreading the word at street booths to garner support for a district council overhaul plan unveiled last week.

The reform plan proposes the number of directly elected council seats be slashed to 20 percent, representing just 88 of the 470 councillors, while 176 councillors would be selected through indirect elections and 179 government-appointed people would take the remaining 40 percent of seats. Sources also revealed yesterday that publicity campaigns for the electoral reform program will run for months and that Legislative Council members have received instructions to order each district office to have four street booths ready this month.

A legislator said the atmosphere at the booths had been "peaceful" and that he did not hear citizens expressing "strong opinions."

He added that he had not expected many people to stop and listen for he had only partly succeeded in introducing the main points of the district council reform plan.

The establishment bloc had previously put together joint efforts to rally support for the national security law passed in June 2020, which reportedly amassed some 2.9 million signatures and following that efforts to support the 2021 electoral reform that installed a "patriots-only" legislature.

Convener Starry Lee Wai-king said the alliance did not have a specific goal but remarked that volunteers "worked very hard" at the booths.

Federation of Trade Unions legislator Bill Tang Ka-piu said the district council reform plan remained in a "theoretical" state, though citizens more aware of current affairs would become more receptive.

"When I was campaigning at the booths I would mention the fifth wave of the pandemic last year and talk about how some councillors weren't able to help constituents because the relations between the council and the government had soured," he said.

A democracy landslide filled 392 of the 452 seats in 2019, but only about 60 democrats remained after most of them resigned, and dozens were arrested or disqualified after authorities installed the patriots-only electoral regime.

cjames.lee@singtaonewscorp.com

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