Chairman Nathan Law Secretary-General Joshua Wong Preceded by Scholarism | Vice-Chairman Oscar Lai Founded 10 April 2016 | |
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Ideology Direct democracy
Liberalism (Hong Kong)
Localism
Social progressivism | ||
Demosistō (/ˌdɛməˈsɪstoʊ/; Chinese: 香港眾志) is a centre-left pro-democracy political party in Hong Kong established on 10 April 2016. Led by the former leaders of Scholarism, Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Oscar Lai and former secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) Nathan Law, the two student activist groups which played an instrumental role in the 79-day occupy protests known as the Umbrella Revolution in 2014.
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The party advocates a referendum to determine Hong Kong's sovereignty after 2047, when the One Country, Two Systems principle as promised in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law is supposed to expire. It won a seat in the 2016 Legislative Council election with its 23-year-old chairman Nathan Law becoming the youngest candidate ever to be elected.
Beliefs
The party proposes four major missions: self-initiation, self-standing, autonomy and self-determination.
Background
The name is derived from the Greek "demos" ("δημο", meaning "people", from which the English word "democracy" is derived) and Latin "sisto" (meaning "to stand", from which English words such as "insist", "persist" and "resist" are derived). Literally translated as "people to stand" in English, it means "stand for democracy", or "stand for the people". The Chinese name means "the will of the people".
The idea of forming a party was inspired by Taiwan's New Power Party which was formed by the Sunflower Movement leaders and fared well in the 2016 Taiwanese legislative election. In February 2016, core figures of the student activist group Scholarism – Joshua Wong, Oscar Lai and Agnes Chow – who played an instrumental role in the 2014 Hong Kong protests, announced their plan of forming a new political party with other Umbrella Movement leaders, including Nathan Law, former secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), to run in the September Legislative Council election. Scholarism officially ceased functioning on 20 March 2016 as the group disallowed any party affiliation.
History
The party was officially established on 10 April 2016 with former secretary-general of Hong Kong Federation of Students Nathan Law Kwun-chung as chairman, former spokesman of Scholarism Oscar Lai as vice-chairman, former convenor as Joshua Wong as secretary-general and former core member Agnes Chow Ting as deputy secretary. Founding party members included Shu Kei, Dean of Film and Television at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts as party's executive committee member, teacher Ng Mei-lan and Hong Kong Unison's Fermi Wong Wai-fun as member of the Kowloon East team. The party initially planned to field chairman Nathan Law in Hong Kong Island and vice-chairman Oscar Lai in Kowloon East but Lai later dropped out due to the lack of funding. Law, 23, eventually became the youngest candidate ever to be elected to the Legislative Council after he received 50,818 votes, the second-highest among all candidates in the constituency.
The Company Registry and police had yet to allow them to register as a company or society, as the registry had asked Demosisto to explain if it adheres to the Basic Law in pushing for Hong Kong’s "self-determination" as the party tries to register as a company. The party was thus unable to set up its own bank account to raise funds as other parties did and had to rely instead on individual members' personal accounts. Joshua Wong also accused HSBC of exercising “political censorship” in rejecting his request to open a joint savings account to handle the business of his political party. In July, Demosisto vice-chairman Oscar Lai decided to drop his candidacy in Kowloon East due to the lack of funding. The mailings of the campaign pamphlets of chairman Nathan Law, who was running in Hong Kong Island, were also delayed as the Hongkong Post had to seek legal advice from the justice department regarding Law’s pamphlets mentioning phrases such as "self-determination".