Hong Kong’s last major opposition party to vote on disbandment amid China crackdown

Hong Kong’s last major opposition party will hold a final vote on Sunday on whether to disband, as China continues to tighten pressure on the city’s remaining liberal voices under a prolonged national security crackdown.

The Democratic Party, founded three years before Hong Kong’s 1997 handover from Britain to China, has long been the city’s main opposition force. It once dominated territory-wide legislative elections and challenged Beijing on democratic reforms and civil liberties.

A Special General Meeting at the party’s headquarters will finalise arrangements for its “dissolution and liquidation”, according to a party statement. Senior members say Chinese officials or intermediaries had warned them to disband or face serious consequences, including possible arrests.

A committee has spent about six months preparing for disbandment, settling legal and accounting issues and arranging the sale of its Kowloon property, which currently houses its headquarters. Disbandment requires approval from 75 percent of party members.

The vote, which would bring an end to more than three decades of opposition party politics in the China-run city, comes a week after Hong Kong held a “patriots only” Legislative Council election and a day before media tycoon and China critic Jimmy Lai is due to receive a verdict in a landmark national security case.

Under the “One Country, Two Systems” framework, Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy and freedoms. However, authorities have increasingly used security laws to arrest dozens of democrats and shut down civil society groups and liberal media outlets.

Beijing’s 2021 overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system, which allows only candidates vetted as “patriots” to run for office, effectively pushed the Democratic Party out of mainstream politics. In June, another pro-democracy group, the League of Social Democrats, also announced it would close amid what it described as immense political pressure.

Several senior Democratic Party figures, including Wu Chi-wai, Albert Ho, Helena Wong and Lam Cheuk-ting, have been jailed or are in custody under the national security law imposed by China in 2020 following mass pro-democracy protests the previous year.

Governments such as the US and Britain have criticised the law, saying it is being used to suppress dissent and individual freedoms. Beijing rejects the criticism, arguing that no freedoms are absolute and that the law has restored stability to Hong Kong.