Gourt Home::Gourt :: Liberal Party (Hong Kong)
| Chairman: | James Tien |
| Founded: | 1993 |
| Headquarters: |
4/F Henley Building, 5 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong |
| District Councillors | 27 |
| Legislative Councillors | 10 |
| Political ideology: | liberal conservative, economic liberalism |
| Website: | Liberal Party |
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 far better than any other political party in Hong Kong. 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; it's lukewarm to universal suffrage, but at the same time it opposes authoritarian measures: the resignation from the Executive Council by its leader James Tien in 2003 prevented the enactment of the ill-conceived implementation of the Article 23 of the Basic Law (see below), and ultimately accelerated the downfall of the ineffective and unpopular Tung administration.
Consistently with its economic policies, the party does not advocate welfare entitlements. Many of its members are from the merchant and business sectors.
History
It was originally founded as a party of businesspeople appointed to the Legislative Council by the colonial government.
Changes in political stance
It has been alleged that the party began leaning towards PRC's Central People's Government in Beijing within the few years before the transfer of sovereignty. Since the transfer of sovereignty it had been an ally of Tung Chee Hwa's administration. As at November 2005 it has been an ally of the administration of Donald Tsang.
In July 6 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. It was a sharp turn from his usual pro-government policy and was praised as heroic in temporarily relaxing a big conflict between the government and the pro-democracy camp supporters; some in the Leftist field, however, feel that this demonstrated the opportunistic nature of businesspeople.
However, at almost the same time, Liberal Party decided to change its policy 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 similar to that of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB); namely, universal suffrage should be implemented on or after 2012 rather than 2007/8.
In January 13, 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 work week down to five days as well. Many large enterprises are mulling over cutting down the work week to five days a week. Presently, most businesse offer a five and a half day work week. There is no planned legislation to force private employers to offer a five day work 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)
See also
External link
- Liberal Party official site (in Chinese) (Click 'English' in the top right-hand corner for the English version)
Liberal-conservative parties | Political parties in Hong Kong
"Liberal Party (Hong Kong)"