WORK_ Hong Kong Protesters Press Allies to Step Up

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Hong Kong Protesters Press Allies to Step Up

Students Leaders Want Greater Public Involvement of Sympathetic Groups

Photo: A man reads a book on Monday at tents set up on a closed road in a part of Hong Kong's financial central district occupied by pro-democracy protesters. Reuters

By Fiona Law, Chester Yung and Mia Lamar
Oct. 27, 2014 1:08 p.m. ET

HONG KONG—Student leaders of pro-democracy protests continued to push Monday to shift the burden of their month-long demonstration to sympathetic groups after a scrapped plan to poll followers.

Student leaders have said they are seeking greater public involvement from pro-democracy legislators and an alliance of more than 20 civil organizations that have so far been working mostly behind the scenes. Specific measures of how these groups could contribute to the movement are being discussed.

“We are currently collecting opinions from various local groups…in order to further impose pressure to the government to offer policies for full democracy sooner [rather] than later,” said Gary Fong, a standing-committee member of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, a group of college-age students who have so far been the face of the protests and sole negotiators with the government.

Pro-democracy legislators and many of the civil organizations have played a quieter role in the monthlong demonstration, providing feedback and support to the students, arranging the transfer of supplies and monitoring crowds across three protest sites. Some lawmakers suggested on Monday they could resign from the legislature to put pressure on the government.

In January of 2010, five pro-democracy lawmakers resigned their seats to trigger a “de facto referendum” on universal suffrage.

Pan-Democrat Alan Leong said the resignation is a possibility but depends on whether he and fellow lawmakers decide it will produce a positive effect.

The students have taken to the streets for more than four weeks to protest Beijing’s decision to allow only prescreened candidates to run for the city’s highest chief-executive position. Protesters are pressing to choose their own candidates, a move that Hong Kong’s government and Beijing officials say isn't possible.

As the demonstration enters its fifth week, time appears to be taking its toll. Protest organizers initially intended on Sunday to begin polling followers on the minor concessions the government made last week in its first face-to-face meeting with student leaders.

Occupy Central with Love and Peace, a group of older social activists that have played a supporting role in student-led protests, in June commissioned a similar-style vote of Hong Kong’s general public that asked participants to weigh in on various constitutional reform proposals. This time around, protest leaders hoped a vote would energize and demonstrate support for a movement that has lacked clear direction since the government meeting.

The effort backfired. Some protesters complained that the organizers of the three main protest groups don’t represent their interests, underscoring the increasingly disparate nature of demonstrators spread across three sites in the city.

Others complained of privacy issues in collecting the votes, which was slated to be held over two days using mobile phones. After working the streets until late in the night Saturday to rally protesters, organizers from HKFS and a second student group known as Scholarism met up and discussed abolishing the vote, according to people familiar with the meetings. An urgent meeting was called for Sunday at noon, where all four groups decided to call the vote off.

Representatives from all four parties joined hands Sunday to bow publicly in apology for an effort they admitted was hasty and lacked preparation.

“I admit the [leaders] have made a mistake,” Alex Chow, secretary-general of HKFS, said on Sunday. “We look forward to having more discussions with protesters in the three protest sites.”

Even as many people have grown wary of the protest encampments blocking major city streets, a poll conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong from Oct. 8 through Oct. 15 showed for the first time since the protests began that more people supported the movement than opposed it.

A separate poll conducted by the university from Oct. 21 through Oct. 23 showed the performance rating of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying fell to the record low of 38.6 in October from 41.4 in September. The telephone poll reflected roughly 800 respondents with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points.

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Isabella Steger contributed to this article.

Write to Fiona Law at fiona.law@wsj.com, Chester Yung at chester.yung@wsj.com and Mia Lamar at mia.lamar@wsj.com  

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