Cyd Ho
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Cyd Ho Sau Lan (Traditional Chinese: 何秀蘭, Simplified Chinese: 何秀兰, Cantonese IPA: , Jyutping: Ho4 Sau3 Laan4, Pinyin: Hé Xiùlán, Bopomofo: ㄏㄜˊㄒㄧㄡˋㄌㄢˊ, Wade-Giles: Ho Hsiu-lan, Gwoyeu Romatzyh: Her Shiow-lan, Mandarin IPA: , born 1954)
She was a full-time legislative councillor of Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), elected from the geographical constituency of Hong Kong Island from 2000 to 2004. Her defeat in September 2004 was a surprise, as the complicated voting system used for elections left her odd-woman out, when in an attempt to help elect fellow-politician and ally Martin Lee, her party failed to receive enough votes.
She is a member of The Frontier (前綫), a pro-democracy political group in Hong Kong.
Ho studied at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She worked in the textile trading industry from 1979 to 1995. In 1991, she helped Emily Lau Wai Hing during the election campaign, the first open direct election of the Legislative Council in colonial Hong Kong. In 1993, she founded the "United Ants"; with other pro-democracy political activisits. In 1995, she worked as the assistant to Margaret Ng Ngoi Yee, a lawmaker representing the legal profession in the LegCo.
In 1996, she and other political activists founded The Frontier, and was the founding convenor of the group.
She was elected a legislative councillor in 1998 from the geographical constituency of New Territories East (新界東) in the first LegCo election since the handover of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from the UK to China in 1997. She was re-elected in the constituency of Hong Kong Island (香港島) in 2000. She chaired bills committees such as the 2004 Education (Revised) Bill and the 2004 Examination Authority Bill, and was vice-chair of the panel on environmental affairs.
She was elected district council member of the Central and Western district through the Kwun Lung (觀龍) constituency in November, 2003, beating veteran Ip Kwok Him of the DAB. She also supported members of Civic Act-up contesting seats in the Wanchai district council.
She pushes for promotion of universal suffrage, rule of law, human rights, and equal opportunity, and cares the interests of women, homosexuals and minorities.
In 2004, she, together with James To Kun Sun, Frederick Fung Kin Kee, Wong Sing Chi, Mak Kwok Fung, attempted to cross the border and meet Beijing officials at Shenzhen, to request for a faster pace of democratisation in Hong Kong.
2004 Election and Defeat
In the Hong Kong Legislative Council election, 2004, Ho contested, together with Audrey Eu Yuet Mee, in the geographical constituency of Hong Kong Island. She was defeated by a very slim margin of votes (815 out of around 350 000, or 0.23%) to the list representing the DAB.
Some has attribute the defeat to the failure of vote allocation among pro-democratic camp candidates, that it was a betrayal of the Democractic Party to a political ally. Despite the original agreement on the slogan "1+1=4", the Democractic Party requested all supporters of democracy in Hong Kong to vote for them, and many supporters of Ho and Eu cast their votes to Martin Lee Chu Ming, believing that Lee's seat would likely be lost to Choy So Yuk of DAB.
A number of disgruntled voters demanded that Yeung Sum and Martin Lee, current and founding chair of Democractic Party respectively, to step down. They accused the two of conspiring to make Lai Chi Keung, the third on their list, to get a seat, by means of proclaiming that Martin Lee seat would likely be lost to Choy So Yuk. As a result, Lai was only behind Ho by only a few hundreds vote, so Lai would have elected if he could, in their words, "cheat" more votes from Eu and Ho's supporters, beating Choy.
However, some people pointed out that her expressing support for legalizing gay marriage during the election campaign was also a fatal blow, because her speech angered a significant number of voters who then casted their ballots against her.
She is currently hosting radio programmes at RTHK every Tuesday evening (1700-2000 HKT), and at PRHK (http://www.prhk.org) every Wednesday night (2200-2300 HKT).</p>
See also
External links
- Picture of Cyd Ho (http://www.voteforhongkong.net/images/cyd_smm.gif)
- Cyd Ho website (http://www.cydho.org.hk)
- Legislative Council (http://www.legco.gov.hk)
- Central and Western District Council (http://www.districtcouncils.gov.hk/central/text_english/welcome.htm)
- The Frontier website (http://www.frontier.org.hk)
- Civic Act-up website (http://www.voteforwanchai.net)
- Cyd Ho's election website for 2003 District Council election (http://www.votehimout.net)
- Cyd Ho's election website for 2004 LegCo election (http://www.voteforhongkong.net) zh:何秀蘭
