The Democratic Party launches a lottery ticket fundraiser with a target fundraising amount of $4 million and an evening donation system.
Since the British Hong Kong government introduced a democratic political system, one of the reasons why the pro-democracy political groups in Hong Kong have been able to grow rapidly is because of the salary and allowances paid by elected members. But when the pro-democracy camp boycotts the Legislative Council elections across the board, and the coming District Councils face Beijing’s blockade, will their source of income become the biggest obstacle to their survival?
General resignation slogan of the pro-democracy camp: Go Hong Kong! All up and all down!
Most of the democrats in Hong Kong resigned from the Legislative Council in order to stick to their principles, but as the democrats left the council, realistic survival problems surfaced.
The Democratic Party, which immediately ran a financial deficit of nearly $10 million over the past year, plans to launch a lottery ticket fundraiser from April 7 to June 1, with a target fundraising amount of $4 million, and will set up 300 street stations throughout the territory and open an online donation system. Yuan Haiwen, chairman of the fund-raising committee, said that because the democratic camp has less income from members after the general resignation, coupled with the epidemic could not hold a fund-raising party, while many party members face judicial proceedings, litigation costs at least millions of dollars, lottery tickets become almost the only way to raise funds.
Asked whether the fundraising amount will be the indicator of the Democratic Party’s decision to run for the Legislative Council, Yuen Hoi Man said the fundraising amount to meet the target and run for the Legislative Council are two different things.
The amount of money raised is not related to whether or not to run for the Legislative Council, it is a different matter. Yesterday, the chairman also said that the issue of running for the Legislative Council is decided by the General Assembly, but if you ask me in terms of financial preparation, I will instead consider, if we do not run for election, how to continue to operate? That’s why it’s important to say that this lottery ticket fundraising.”
[Hong Kong democrats are under unprecedented suppression].
How can the funding be sustained?
Hong Kong’s largest democratic party, the Democratic Party’s fundraising committee chairman Yuen Hoi Man, revealed that a large number of party members are facing legal action, the deficit is expected to be close to 10 million Hong Kong dollars. With the epidemic, fundraising dinners are no longer possible, and lottery ticket fundraising has become “close to being the only way to raise money” for the Democratic Party (not counting online fundraising).
The party hopes to raise HK$4 million in this year’s raffle pic.twitter.com/5A0zlWXyhC
- Radio Free Asia (@RFA_Chinese) April 6, 2021
According to Legislative Council documents, each legislator will receive a minimum of $17.6 million per term, including a monthly salary of $100,000 and an annual legislator’s allowance of about $3 million, including office operating expenses, medical allowance, and transportation expenses. A portion of their salaries will also be paid to their political parties to support the development of party affairs. Although the income contributed by legislators accounts for about 10% of the total income of the Democratic Party, it supports about 100 legislators’ assistants and plays a key role in district work.
Smaller parties struggle more to operate with sharply reduced revenues
Compared to the big traditional democratic parties, small political parties have a more difficult space to survive. Labor Party Chairman Kwok Wing-kin told the station that the Labor Party and the Democratic Party are facing similar resource problems, and in order to cut expenses, the original 3-4 full-time staff members have been reduced to the current one staff member, making the work more difficult. Guo Yongjian also said that the current Labor Party has certain reserves, I believe that the financial pressure will not make the Labor Party disbanded, but also worried about the future of funding revenue, “now the risk of crowdfunding has become high, moving to say ‘money laundering’, so we are looking for a better way to increase revenue “.
In the face of financial pressure, will the Labour Party consider returning to parliament again?
Kwok Wing-kin: “I don’t think it will be measured in this way. There are other ways to make up for the resource problem, such as raising money from the public. If you run for the Legislative Council, one is to continue to participate in the role of the Legislative Council is very little, and the second involves the issue of principle.”
Scholars believe that the democratic parties may transform to find room for survival
The democratic political parties are experiencing a political winter, Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion’s deputy chief executive Zhong Jianhua told us frankly that after the National People’s Congress amended Hong Kong’s electoral system, it is basically difficult for political parties to participate in elections if they do not have the support of the government or behind Beijing, and there is little room for survival. He believed that democratic political parties must transform in the future in order to find a way out.
Chung: “In the 70’s, before Hong Kong had universal suffrage for the Legislative Council and District Council elections, there were not many political parties or political parties under the banner of political parties, but at that time there were a large number of concern groups and pressure groups in various forms. Even if they didn’t run for election, they created noise outside the system with the intention of influencing the government and maintaining a certain level of exposure.”
Asked whether the construction of district networks would be affected, Chung argued that in today’s technological era, interpersonal and district networks have moved to social platforms and communication technology, and it is believed that as long as people have the motivation to continue to participate in social affairs, it is impossible to “extinguish” the voice of civil society.
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