Six pro-democracy-leaning community groups have formed a new union with the aim of winning 15 seats at the District Council elections in 2019.
The formation of the Community Network Union was announced at a press conference on Sunday. The union said that resistance on the streets has yet to produce immediate results, and it hopes to shift the focus to the community instead.
Community Network Union said that it has not yet defined whether it was politically localist or pan-democratic – and wished to leave it to voters to decide. However, the union said it believes there would be a room for cooperation with the opposition camp.
Ventus Lau, spokesperson for the Community Network Union, told HKFP on Tuesday that the member organisations were community groups active in Sha Tin, Tuen Mun, Kwai Tsing, Tsuen Wan, Lam Tin, and Tin Shui Wai that formed between 2014 – 2017.
Lau is also president of the Sha Tin Community Network, which won a seat in the District Council elections in 2015. He said that the new group would work on transportation issues such as cross-district bus lanes. As a union, they would also tackle bigger issues such as the high-speed rail controversy.
When asked whether the union was optimistic community work would translate into a political force, Lau said, “[P]ro-establishment groups [have] a lot influence in the district level… If we can win more than half of the seats in one district council, we will be able to allocate resources and take some power away from the pro-China camp.”
