Another Commie sympathizer in sheep’s clothing unmasked in C&W District

The battle for seats on Central and Western District Council ahead of next Sunday’s election inflicts collateral damage as every mailbox on my side of the street gets mistakenly blitzed by leaflets from Wai Pui Shuen, Candidate 1 in Chung Wan Constituency (Constituency 1) – the boundary of which runs along the middle of the road. Although she will not be on the ballot up here in the rarified Mid-Levels East (Constituency 2), residents see her banners every time they stroll down the hill into her territory, and they cannot help but be intrigued by the vacant gaze, the enigmatic, Mona Lisa-like smile, and the overall mildly zombified look.

I am grateful to Mr Webb for unearthing a little trail that leads us to an explanation. Ms Wai the 25-year-old ‘Independent’ and solicitor (of barely two months) has an email address as Winnie at Sidney Lee & Co law firm. That firm is run by Sidney Lee Chi-hang, who is running to keep his seat representing the grimy but gentrification-bound Centre Street neighbourhood (Constituency unlucky-number 14). His bio reveals that the government has given him various third-tier baubles of recognition in the form of membership of property tribunals. His sole opponent is a trendy 1980s-born free-thinker called Wong Ho-yin who has seen the light about Hong Kong’s wretchedly damaging and unfair land system and is endorsed by the pro-democracy Civic Party.

The Centre Street area (First, Second, Third Street, etc) will before long have an MTR station and even a mini-Escalator. It would be pleasing to think that its upwardly mobile residents will decide to cast out their closet pro-Beijing councillor at some stage – maybe next Sunday.

Back in Chung Wan, Wai Pui Shuen’s chances are hard to rate. Like many candidates in the area, especially those pretending to be independents rather than pro-Beijing, she has bland ideas about the Mid-Levels Escalator. The Democratic Party, which won last time in 2007, is being challenged by one of the more radical People’s Power types, who are bent on damaging the DP’s chances simply to punish them for doing a deal with Beijing officials about constitutional reform last year. If Ms Wai wins, it will be because the more extreme pro-democrats let her – a pattern that may be repeated elsewhere. Some District Council members will be returned to the Legislative Council on a city-wide at-large basis via universal suffrage in September 2012, so the radicals are in practice helping the pro-Beijing camp here.

Nonetheless, they are sworn enemies. The most interesting race in Central & Western District will be in Constituency 7: Kwun Lung, over in the remote far west of Kennedy Town. This is the District’s token (1960s) public housing estate area, and will host an epic conflict between two legislators, veteran pro-Beijing loyalist Ip Kwok-him GBS, JP and Trotskyist firebrand Leung Kwok-hung, or Longhair. Ip is the incumbent and won more votes than any candidate in the District last time round. He was humiliated once, in 2003 when voters threw out pro-Beijing council members in the wake of Tung Chee-hwa’s Article 23 debacle. If Longhair can’t pull it off, no-one can. (And, probably, no-one can.)

Meanwhile, the hunt for totalitarian leftist elements pretending to be harmless bourgeois citizens continues.

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12 Responses to Another Commie sympathizer in sheep’s clothing unmasked in C&W District

  1. shekoman says:

    This is an expensive exercise in futility because District Councils even of the DAB persuasion carry no weight with the Govt. For instance the DAB weighted Islands District Council gave a near unanimous direction to the Lands Department to reconsider their plans for public housing on valuable land on Lantau, last July, which was followed by the CE simply declaring that it was going ahead anyway.

  2. Walter De Havilland says:

    I’m bored by this District Council stuff. Can we move on?

  3. Real Tax Payer says:

    Me too

  4. Bored? Come and join me on the side of the road! When will someone unmask my ‘independent’ competitor … http://www.yimkinping.hk/ … or his election website … http://www.cccyber.hk/pfl/D11_3/D11_3_eng.html

  5. Tiu Fu Fong says:

    That half of Mr Yim’s photos feature him with a microphone in front of him belies his “Dedication in Silence” claims.

  6. Stephen says:

    Read Ir Yim’s paper “2007.09.28 keep functional constituencies – they are the key to full democracy”

    FFS !

  7. Probably says:

    The only power that District Councillors appear to be able to wield is that which perpetuates uneconomic bus routes that have operated since pre-MTR times.
    On “behalf of” their minimal number of constituents and just to prove how “strong” they are in a toothless system they repeatedly reject any of the bus companies plans to rationalise uneconomic routes which might otherwise free up money for either fare price maintenance or, god forbid, replacement of the dirtiest polluting old buses.
    Watch this space, since I predict that as a result of these tin pot Napoleans the Transport Department would rather grant the major franchise bus operator an extended life for it’s old polluting buses rather than reduce numbers or increase fares.
    If you don’t believe me then take a look at some of their election posters which claim to “save” bus routes (and seats since they also will not concede downsizing of buses to ones that drag less weight around and hence burn less fuel).

  8. Joe Blow says:

    The DC is merely a stepping stone for the uber-ambitious littlle people who wish to climb the ‘public service’ ladder. The Bunny Chans and such.

    Thank goodness they have no real power.

    (no disrespect to you, Mr Zimmerman, but as your cousin Bob used to say (Bob Die-lan, in Bowtie-speak) “the times they are a-changing”. Except in the District Councils, they never do.

  9. Real Tax Payer says:

    I am thinking of infiltrating the DAB in my impending retirement…

    Seriously

  10. Probably says:

    That is said with apologies to Paul Z above who is not of the same ilk.

  11. Jon Dica says:

    How come Long Hair’s not in Tseung Kwan O district anymore?

  12. Walter De Havilland says:

    @ Mr. Zimmerman. Should you not be out paragliding instead of hanging around on street corner?

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