HONG KONG — "Our election campaign is based on a transitional program aimed at gaining the attention of the working masses of Hong Kong", Leung Kwok-hung, candidate for the April 5 Action socialist organisation, explained to Green Left Weekly on July 24.
Leung is running for the Hong Kong Legislative Council, a complicated and undemocratic body which limits direct control by the people of Hong Kong and protects the power of the wealthy elite who continue to rule the ex-British colony despite its handover to Beijing in 1997.
Leung is well known here as "Long Hair", after numerous public protests over the years, most recently in the chamber of the council in May, which led to a two-week stint in jail for "disrupting the thoughts" of chief executive Tung Che-hwa.
Sporting a shorter haircut, thanks to the prison barber, Leung presented a colourful figure in his Che Guevara T-shirt, as he spruiked to passersby outside the railway station in the working-class suburb of Sheung Shui.
The electorate he is contesting is based on the New Territories area outside Hong Kong proper. There are 600,000 registered voters in an area populated by 1.5 million people. The election campaign is a huge task for a small organisation.
The main planks of April 5 Action's election platform include: the establishment of a system of unemployment benefits; the introduction of a livable minimum wage; the restoration of workers' right to collective bargaining; and the end of discrimination against union and political activists.
"The government is cutting back wages of public servants and slashing jobs in the public sector, as well as increasing casual and part-time employment. We are calling for a comprehensive social security system and a tax on business speculation", Leung told Green Left Weekly.
April 5 Action also opposes privatisation of state enterprises throughout China, calls for an election for a Chinese people's congress based on a genuine universal franchise, and advocates an end to one-party control and for genuine socialist democracy based on the right to organise and freedom of speech. In Hong Kong, it is calling for a referendum on the system of government and the basic law that controls administration in the territory.
BY JIM McILROY