The chaos at Hong Kong's Legislative Council is getting worse every week. The opposition camp has resorted to filibustering tactics on almost all government bills and proposals. Moreover, they refuse to fulfill their most basic duty as legislators, that of attending meetings, and boycott the sessions. Sometimes, this even causes the session to be suspended as not enough legislators show up. Sadly, this is common behavior these days in the legislature.

In their fight against the proposed amendment to the copyright ordinance, the opposition camp claims that the bill, if passed, would suppress freedom of expression and hinder the creativity of netizens. With the growing influence of the Internet on every facet of people's lives, not least on the political scene, the opposition dare not offend the netizens - the majority of whom are young people. Moreover, it is relatively easy to amass a fairly significant number of supporters through social media and form a very vocal minority group. They can then influence the mainstream media as well as lobby or even coerce others to submit to their causes.

Leaving the LegCo chamber on the pretense of non-cooperative movement will also allow them to focus on canvassing votes for the New Territories East by-election in February and the LegCo elections in September by enjoying more media exposure and more time spent in their constituencies.

After all, the opposition camp only needs to have one of their members remaining in the council chamber to request roll calling and hold over 30 pro-establishment legislators "hostage". It is indeed a great bargaining tool for them. Understandably, some lawmakers from the pro-establishment camp have refused to waste their time sitting in the council chamber to support such a farce. As a result, not many have wanted to stay in the council chamber and sessions sometimes have had to be suspended because of the lack of a quorum.

In the remaining months of this LegCo term, there are still several major bills and proposals which need to be deliberated on. According to the government, the request for additional funding for construction of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link has to be approved by March. Otherwise, the project will grind to a complete halt and thousands of construction workers will lose their jobs. Needless to say, this would further reduce the competitiveness of Hong Kong in the long run. Even more important will be the government's Budget. The financial secretary will make a budget speech soon. Failure to approve the Budget on time would shut down the government and jeopardize all essential public services. With the deteriorating situation in LegCo, this unthinkable scenario is no longer improbable.

Obviously, most people do not wish to see this kind of showdown happening in the legislature every week. But it is undeniable that a substantial number of people in Hong Kong support these filibustering and non-cooperative actions. These people, certainly not only young people, have long been dissatisfied with or even strongly against the government for ideological and political reasons. They greatly distrust the government, especially the Chief Executive, and consider most if not all of its policies to be either immoral or unjust. Being a minority in LegCo, the opposition camp can hardly veto the bills and proposals that they despise. Moreover, their protests outside the legislature, most notably the "Occupy Central" movement in 2014, failed miserably. Filibustering has thus become the only effective way to vent their anger and frustration. The opposition political parties were all taking full advantage of any situation to rally for more votes in the coming elections.

There are frequent controversies surrounding government policies these days and pro-establishment parties supporting these policies have been criticized and labeled as "royalists". That partly led to the opposition candidates performing better than expected during last year's district council elections.

LegCo elections have long been dominated by ideological issues. Topics such as the implementation of "One Country, Two Systems", perceived conflicts between the residents of the mainland and Hong Kong, the "core values" of Hong Kong as well as the demand for so-called "genuine" universal suffrage, will surely be hotly debated in the coming months. The opposition will do their utmost to exaggerate and amplify any social issues and unexpected events. This is to create a sense of fear, anger and hatred among the public. Their media supporters, both traditional and online, will surely rally along to attract as many eyeballs as possible. If the current trend continues, the opposition will likely gain seats in LegCo and filibustering will continue for a long time.

(HK Edition 02/05/2016 page9)