Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong
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The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) (民主建港聯盟) is the largest pro-Beijing political party in Hong Kong SAR of the PRC. Founded in 10 July 1992, the party has been headed by Ma Lik since December 2003.
The party started with a single seat on the Legislative Council. The 1995 LegCo elections increased the DAB's share to six seats. After 1997, Hong Kong handed over to PRC, DAB enjoyed political "free lunch" from PRC, and gained a number of seats in Legco through unfair Functional Constituency election, and they remain unfavour in local district direct election. In 2000 it had ten councillors in Legco. The most recent Legislative Council election in 2004, it become the largest (by number) political party to be represented with 12 seats, with the Liberal Party coming second (10 seats), and the Democratic Party coming third (9 seats).
Twelve district councillors joined the party on its formation, a share that increased to 37 seats in the 1994 elections and 83 in 1999. In the wake of the controversies over the legislation of Article 23 of the Basic Law in 2003, the party's popularity dropped drastically and the November 2003 District Councils elections saw its seats drop to 62. The election results have led to the resignation of its former Chairman, Jasper Tsang Yok-sing. However, due to health of Ma Lik, Tsang is still very much representing DAB.
The DAB is a conservative and pro-Beijing government party vis-a-vis the Democratic Party, and was not popular amongst the younger generation and citizens with high education level, who demand political reforms and a better system of checks and balances against the government.
A merger with the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance was announced on 16 February 2005. The two parties were merged with new leadership selected on 31 May 2005.
Controversies
Template:Sect-stub The DAB is well-known for providing advantages to people, including seafood meals, local trips to outlying islands, at price significantly lower than in market. It also provides free transport and meals to mobilise people to join its mass rallies. It is reported that many of the participants do not know they are going to join the rallies, but rather part of the trip, until they are sent to the venue.
The DAB and its sister organisation HKFTU are also famous for mobilising its supporters, as well as employees of PRC state-owned companies, to vote for its candidates in elections. In the 2004 Legislative Council election, although support of Chan Yuen Han's ticket is far higher than Chan Kam Lam's, both in the same constituency and representing DAB and HKFTU, the two organisations managed to share their supports equally among the two tickets. At another constituency, the ticket of Ma Lik and Choy So Yuk took the advantage of the competition from the same pool of support among two pro-democracy tickets.
See also
External links
- Official website (http://www.dab.org.hk/en/info/main.asp)zh:民主建港聯盟