Reuters

A great night out

DEPENDING on your perspective, it was either a pointless bit of argy-bargy outside a milquetoast legislative council—or a soul-stirring “siege of Legco”. Thousands of Hong Kongers, young and old, came together on January 16th to make some noise about spending on public infrastructure. Their protests were in vain, but the noise was heard.

Despite them, Legco approved funding for a high-speed rail-link with Shenzhen and Guangzhou, over the border in China proper. On January 18th Donald Tsang, the region's chief executive, condemned the protesters, warning them to reflect, lest they “suffocate peaceful and rational expression of opinion.”

Protesters organised by means of texting, Twitter and Facebook. On January 1st thousands of the same “post-80s” generation had marched in support of universal suffrage. This challenges both Mr Tsang, who was chosen by an appointed election committee, and Legco itself. Half of its 60 members are directly elected. The rest, including most of the 31 who backed the rail-link, are chosen by “functional constituencies”—unelected proxies for business and political interests, usually on China's side.

It was this undemocratic set-up, rather than the improved connection to the mainland's railways, that had stoked anger. The protesters see the oft-repeated promise of representative democracy receding into the future. Hong Kong's government and officials in Beijing have reason to feel jumpy. In parallel to the rail-link fracas, some of Hong Kong's democrats have been devising a new form of protest. Frustrated by the delays in implementing democratic reform, two political parties have declared that on January 27th they will quit five seats in Legco, one for each of the territory's voting districts. The quitters plan to contest the same seats in by-elections. Their parties hope to turn these into a de facto referendum on democracy.

This will not be easy. The Democratic Party, the largest of the “pan-democratic” parties, has spurned the campaign. It found many voters disapproved of the idea, or did not understand it. A poll finds that 50% of voters oppose the by-election plan, and 24% support it. Kenneth Chan, who speaks for the campaign, concedes it will be hard work to cast the by-elections as a contest pitting democracy against business-as-usual. China's government, however, is doing its bit to help. This week the State Council, or cabinet, accused the democrats of mounting a “blatant challenge” to the authority of the central government. This made the by-elections look like a real referendum rather than yet another futile protest.

Still, the democrats' manoeuvre is a dangerous gamble. They hold only 23 of Legco's 60 seats at present, so they risk falling below the one-third of seats that allows them to block constitutional reforms. But then, Mr Chan notes, what has this veto done for them lately?