【明報專訊】Pan-democrats Martin Lee (李柱銘, left), one of the founders of the Democratic Party (民主黨), argues that it is more important to bring real democracy to Hong Kong than to enact a political party law. He is worried that such a law could make it harder for parties in the democratic camp to survive, as they would then have to disclose the sources of their funding. He is against making such a law when Hong Kong people do not enjoy real democracy.

Chairwoman of the Civic Party Audrey Eu (公民黨主席余若薇, right) shares Martin Lee's view, saying Hong Kong people are not ready for a political party law yet because they still have the perception that politics is dirty.

Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau (劉慧卿), however, supports the idea. According to her, it is good for political parties' operations to be more transparent.

Pro-establishment politicians

Ip Kwok-him, a DAB lawmaker (民建聯議員葉國謙, says his party is open to suggestions for such a piece of legislation, adding that the list of DAB members has already been made public.

Rita Fan, a Hong Kong delegate to the National People Congress (港區人大代表范徐麗泰,), is in favour of making a political party law. She says it is possible by having parties operating within a legal framework to prevent them from practising populism (民粹主義).

Political scientists

Choy Chi-keung (蔡子強, above), a political scientist, says that such a piece of legislation could be used to control political parties' ideology (意識形態) as it can be invoked to ban parties deemed to have "subverted state power" (顛覆國家). Comparing it to Article 23 legislation, he says pro-democracy parties could suffer because of it.