Legco’s Long Minutes

By HK staff | May 17, 2012

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Legco has been filibustered. Members of the League of Social Democrats and People Power have submitted 1,300 amendments in an attempt to get the council’s by-election amendment bill withdrawn, causing delays, long, drawn-out meetings, and plenty of frustrated lawmakers. We take a look at the minutes of filibuster.

4:30pm: Legco session opens with the motion: “Why does the word ‘quorum’ sound so weird after you say it five times in a row?”

4:43pm: Wong Ting-kwong of the import and export functional constituency falls asleep. Jasper Tsang looks at him disapprovingly.

6pm: Trying to buy some more time, “Mad Dog” Raymond Wong decides to put on his own version of YouTube hit “The Evolution of Dance.” He repeats the routine 147 times.

8pm: Audrey Eu organizes a crafting party to keep the by now incredibly bored legislators entertained. It goes well until Lau Wong-fat of the Heung Yee Kuk starts making macramé small houses and scattering them all over the other legislators’ desks. She asks him to stop but he throws a tantrum and starts smashing up everyone’s sculptures, shouting that if he can’t have illegal structures, then nobody can.

10pm: “Longhair” Leung Kwok-hung decides that it’ll be fun to throw a “Mr. Legco” pageant, where legislators have to prove their charm, poise and grace to a judging panel made up of the night-shift janitorial staff. Alan Leong wins the swimsuit round but he stumbles during the Q&A when he inadvertently reveals that despite being a legislator for Kowloon East, he can’t tell the judges where Ngau Tau Kok is.

Midnight: Legco members sit in a big circle, huddled under blankets while the DAB take it in turns to tell scary campfire stories about peeping Toms in shopping centers and the deadly dangers of unfettered democracy and the ire of Beijing. They decide to stop when Paul Tse pees his pants.

3am: With the Council in need of a late-night snack, legislators decide to call Tsui Wah to order a takeaway. In order to make sure that everyone knows what they’re ordering, People Power’s Albert Chan insists on reading the menu out loud in Cantonese, English, Putonghua and Hakka. By the time he finally finishes, it’s already past 3am and the restaurant only has fishball noodles left—drat!

5am: Wong Ting-kwong wakes up and is mad that he missed the pageant. Fortunately Jasper Tsang gives Wong a bun out of his briefcase to keep him happy. After eating the bun, he burrows back into his nest of papers and has another nap.

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