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Liberal Party (Hong Kong)
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Liberal Party (traditional Chinese: 自由黨) is a liberal conservative political party in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.
Party Beliefs
The party is known for its conservative and business-friendly policies. Despite being a political party friendly with Beijing, it fits in the centre-right political spectrum. Although not a libertarian party in the traditional sense, the Hong Kong Liberal Party is an example of a political party with libertarian economic policies such as the opposition of a minimum wage, collective bargaining, and antitrust legislation. The party also supports limited government, low taxes, and a high degree of economic freedom. The party has been fairly neutral on social issues such as universal suffrage, whilst opposing measures that disturb the public sentiment too greatly: the resignation from the Executive Council by its leader James Tien in 2003 prevented the implementation of Article 23 of the Basic Law, which ultimately accelerated the downfall of the Tung administration.
The party does not advocate welfare entitlements. Many of its members are from the merchant and business sectors and see preserving stability and in most cases, the status quo, as being most advantageous to their economic interests and Hong Kong's in general.
History
It was originally founded as a party for businesspeople appointed to the Legislative Council by the colonial government.
Changes in political stance
It has been alleged that the party began leaning towards the pro-government camp within a few years before the transfer of sovereignty. Under Tung Chee Hwa's administration, it was generally considered a government-ally. Since Donald Tsang took over in November 2005, the party has continued its generally pro-government stance.
In 6 July 2003, James Tien Pei Chun the leader of Liberal Party resigned from the Executive Council of Hong Kong and forced the government to delay the second reading of the legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law. This exception to the party's usual pro-government policy was considered positive in temporarily calming the frictions between the pro-government and the pro-democracy supporters. Others such as those in the Leftist field, however, felt that this demonstrated the opportunistic nature of the party.
At almost the same time, the Liberal Party decided to shift its political stance from "all Legislation members should be directly elected in 2007" to "Hong Kong should become more democratic." The founder and ex-chair of Liberal Party, Allen Lee Peng Fei, decided to leave the party since he believed the change was against public sentiments. Their stance in universal suffrage is now similar to that of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB); namely, that universal suffrage should be implemented in or after 2012 rather than in 2007/8.
In 13 January 2006, the Liberal Party has opposed Chief Executive Donald Tsang's plan of implementing a five day work week for most civil servants, due to concerns that this would put too much pressure on small to medium-sized enterprises to cut their working week down to five days as well. Many large enterprises are still deciding on this matter. Presently, most businesses offer a five and a half day working week. There is no planned legislation to force private employers to commit to a five day working week.
Performance in Elections
The Liberal Party saw its greatest success in the 2004 Legislative Council elections. With its success in gaining seats from the geographical constituencies through direct elections while retaining those seats in the functional constituencies, the party had its number of seats increased from seven (in 2000 elections) to ten, overtaking the Democratic Party for the first time since 1995 and became the second-largest political party in the legislature.
List of its chairmen:
- Allen Lee (1993-1998)
- James Tien (since 1998)
External links
- Liberal Party official site (in Chinese) (Click 'English' in the top right-hand corner for the English version)
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