The League of Social Democrats: A brief history of Hong Kong's now-disbanded left-wing party

HKFP

14 hours ago

On one sunny Sunday, the second-to-last day of June, seven members of the League of Social Democrats (LSD) held a press conference. Around 70 reporters and photographers had to squeeze into the small venue, which measured only 400 square feet, to hear an important announcement.
It was an extraordinary occasion for the 19-year-old left-wing political party – not only because it was announcing its disbandment but also because, over the years, the LSD had spent more time carrying out street actions than holding official events like this.
The LSD had a colourful, if not polarising, nearly two decades of existence – from staging street protests with eye-catching props like paper coffins to throwing bananas at the city's chief executive at the Legislative Council (LegCo).
On the one hand, its stunts earned condemnation from pro-establishment figures and Beijing-backed newspapers for 'disrupting' Hong Kong, 'bringing disorder,' and 'encouraging rioting.' On the other hand, its candour won supporters, praising it for challenging authorities. They said the left-wing party made politics, once an activity reserved for Hong Kong's elites, more appealing to the general public.
Considered one of the few progressive forces in local politics, the LSD fought not only for democratic political reform but also for equality and the rights of the underprivileged.
HKFP looks back at the LSD over the years, from the beginning to the end.
The Beggar's Sect
The LSD's history began on May 1, 2006 – Labour Day – when dozens of people dressed in red gathered on Sai Yeung Choi Street South in Mong Kok to announce the founding of a new left-wing, pro-democracy political party.
Among them were activists, lawmakers and district councillors, such as Leung Kwok-hung, nicknamed 'Long Hair;' Raymond Wong; and Albert Chan. There were also Bull Tsang, an industrial worker who served as a lawmaker before the Handover, from 1995 to 1997, and Chan Po-ying, who married Leung in 2021 and became the party's last chairperson.
Some people on that day held red roses – a symbol of socialism and social democracy – which was adopted as the party's logo.
It was a time when Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties grew. Just three months prior, a group of scholars and lawyers founded a pro-democracy party called the Civic Party.
While advocating democratic political reform like many pro-democracy parties, the LSD – staying true to its socialist ideals – was regarded as closer to the grassroots, the working class, and the marginalised groups.
At the final press conference last month, the LSD chair, Chan Po-ying, likened the LSD to the 'Beggars' Sect.' A popular trope in wuxia, or Chinese martial arts stories, such as novels written by popular writer Jin Yong, the Beggars' Sect is often depicted as a group without material possessions but keen to help the weak and fight for justice.
She said the LSD held a strong belief that power belongs to the people. It advocated universal suffrage – one person, one vote – while supporting the poor and opposing 'white elephant' projects, which she said wasted public resources.
Among the many issues the LSD was concerned about were economic inequality, particularly the effects on underprivileged groups; rights of marginalised groups such as the LGBTQ community and domestic workers; and Hong Kong's political reform towards universal suffrage, which is guaranteed by the Basic Law.
The LSD Trio
The party's most prominent figures, nicknamed 'the LSD Trio,' were three key founding members who served at LegCo.
They were: Albert Chan, a social worker and a politician who was elected as a lawmaker in 1991, during British colonial rule; Wong, a well-known political pundit nicknamed 'Mad Dog'; and Leung, an avowed leftist activist.
The trio believed in carrying out direct non-violent actions to pursue democracy and equality. 'There will be no changes without fighting!' was the slogan of the party.
They were also concerned with the rights and livelihood of ordinary Chinese, especially the underprivileged, and called for ending the one-party rule of the CCP.
Leung, a.k.a. Long Hair, was an outlier in Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp. At only 19, shortly after graduating from secondary school, he joined the now-defunct Revolutionary Marxist League in 1975. He worked part-time in canteens, bars and factories, while having meetings with party members and carrying out protests against both British colonial rule and the one-party rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In 1988, Leung founded the political group April Fifth Action. One year later, his group joined Hong Kong's pan-democrat parties and organisations in supporting the Chinese pro-democracy movement in 1989, which ended with the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Leung and other April Fifth Action members rose to fame as radical activists on the street. In 1998, just as then Chinese president Jiang Zemin was arriving at the Convention and Exhibition Centre, they burned a mock coffin outside the Wan Chai venue to call for the end of authoritarian rule and rehabilitate the 1989 pro-democracy movement.
Mock coffins later became a symbolic prop of Leung and the LSD's protests.
Leung was elected to the legislature in 2004, two years before the LSD was founded. In 2008, Wong was elected as a LegCo member. Along with Albert Chan, the LSD Trio formed a radical group in LegCo, protesting, raising critical questions, and staging filibusters with marathon-long speeches.
Radical actions in LegCo
Leung's election as a legislator transformed the gentlemanly culture of Hong Kong's legislature. When he first appeared at LegCo as an elected representative, he did not wear a suit, breaking the norm. Instead, he showed up in jeans and his signature Che Guevara T-shirt.
'It's like a commoner suddenly arriving in an aristocratic place. At that moment, both the chairman and the secretariat [of LegCo] were a bit at a loss, not knowing how to restrict him,' former pro-democracy lawmaker Fernando Cheung told Initium Media in an interview in 2017.
In the interview with Initium, Leung said he became a lawmaker hoping to better inform the public about what the government was doing and, at the same time, to empower his voters through direct action.
In LegCo's chamber, the street activist adopted radical means to question officials and even the chief executives. He brought all kinds of props to the chamber, such as fashioning a photo of then chief executive Leung Chun-ying into a 'Pinocchio.' He also left his seat to confront officials at close range, threw bananas at them, and snatched or even ripped up government documents.
While the LSD politician was serving as a lawmaker from 2004 to 2017, it was often heard during live debates that the LegCo president gave an order: 'Member Leung Kwok-hung, please leave the chamber immediately.'
When taking the LegCo oaths of office, Leung added chants such as 'To fight for democracy, justice, human rights and freedom,' or held up a yellow umbrella symbolising his support for the Umbrella Movement.
For his first three terms, his oaths of office were accepted by the legislature. However, in 2016, despite the pan-democrats' objections, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress interpreted the Basic Law after Leung and five lawmakers did not take the oath as requested. The six legislators were later disqualified by the court and were ousted from the legislature.
The LSD Trio heckled then chief executive Donald Tsang when the city's leader announced a plan to introduce a means test for the Old Age Living Allowance – popularly called 'the fruit money' – during the 2008 Policy Address. Wong then threw three bananas towards Donald Tsang to express his disapproval, which led the three lawmakers being ejected from the chamber. Other lawmakers, including the pan-democrats, criticised Wong for using 'violent means.'
Albert Chan and Raymond Wong quit the LSD in 2011, following an internal dispute within the party, while Long Hair remained in the LSD. The two later established People Power, another radical pro-democracy party.
'Alternative referendum'
In September 2009, the LSD proposed a plan that surprised the pro-democracy camp: pro-democracy legislators would resign from five constituencies across Hong Kong, thereby triggering a by-election that would serve as an ' alternative referendum ' for citizens to vote on the issue of universal suffrage.
The party hoped the by-election could reflect Hongkongers' opinions and push Beijing to implement a timeline for Hong Kong to hold general elections for chief executives and all lawmakers.
The Civic Party decided to support the LSD's proposal. However, the Democratic Party, Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy party, and the other two traditional pan-democrat parties, the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) and Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre (NWSC), refused to join.
Unsurprisingly, China's top office overseeing Hong Kong and Macau affairs slammed the proposal, saying that staging a referendum was illegal in Hong Kong.
Ultimately, the LSD Trio and two Civic Party legislators, Tanya Chan and Alan Leong, resigned from LegCo. A by-election was held in May 2010, which saw only 580,000 people cast their votes, reflecting a 17.1 per cent turnout.
The move was widely criticised for wasting taxpayers' money.
It also signalled a fragmentation of different political forces within the pro-democracy camp. While the old guards, such as the Democratic Party, resorted to moderate means and hoped to maintain communication with the government, the LSD and new forces preferred a more confrontational approach to fight for democracy.
Punishment and policy changes
Throughout their activism and political careers, LSD members have been fined or even jailed for their unusual protest actions.
As early as 1979, Leung was fined HK$250 for painting slogans in public spaces. He was also jailed for one month that year for illegal assembly. Since then, he has faced nearly 30 court cases related to his actions in LegCo, his protests at official events, and more recently, his participation in an unofficial primary election.
Raphael Wong, 36, part of a new generation of LSD leaders, has also experienced multiple imprisonments due to his protests. According to a report by Photon Media, he was jailed four times between 2019 and 2024.
LSD members also used the courts to attempt policy changes, filing judicial reviews and making legal challenges against government policies.
According to HKFP's research, from 2006 to 2019, Leung, sometimes along with other activists, filed at least seven judicial reviews. While some of these were dismissed, others resulted in permanent policy changes.
For example, in 2008, Leung and two inmates challenged the government's ban on prisoner voting. In December that year, the High Court ruled that prisoners have the constitutional right to vote.
Having been forced to cut his long locks after being sentenced to jail in 2014, Leung challenged the Correctional Services Department, arguing its compulsory haircut rule, which only applied to male prisoners, was discriminatory. The Court of Final Appeal ruled in favour of Leung in 2020.
In 2018, LSD member and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham launched a legal challenge to have overseas same-sex marriages recognised in Hong Kong – resulting in a landmark, partial victory for marriage equality. In September 2023, the top court obliged authorities to establish a framework recognising same-sex marriage, giving the government two years to do so.
However, the government's proposed framework, unveiled two months before the deadline, was not only slammed by Sham and other LGBTQ advocates, but also opposed by many pro-establishment lawmakers.
LSD's last years
After the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and the Mong Kok unrest in 2016, the LSD's protest tactics were considered no longer radical. Moreover, Hong Kong's localist movement gained traction in the early 2010s. Unlike the 'old-school' pro-democracy camp, the localists were more focused on differentiating Hong Kong from mainland China.
Leung, who is concerned with human rights in China and believes in non-violent street actions, was considered 'outdated' by some localist supporters. However, the party continued to campaign for universal suffrage, to advocate for the underprivileged, and petition against human rights condition of mainland China.
Since the Beijing-imposed national security law came into effect, the LSD encountered unprecedented difficulties. Its leaders were remanded one by one.
In 2021, Leung and Sham were among 47 prominent democrats arrested, detained, and charged with 'conspiracy to commit subversion' under the 2020 security law linked to primaries in a bid to win the 2020 legislative election.
Last year, the High Court acquitted two and sentenced 45 others to prison. Leung was jailed for six years and nine months, while Sham was sentenced to four years and three months' imprisonment.
Sham was released from prison on May 30, while Leung is still in jail.
In May 2021, LSD member Figo Chan was sentenced to 22 months' imprisonment for taking part in five marches and assemblies during the 2019 protests and unrest.
In August 2021, Wong, then LSD chair, was jailed for 14 months over illegal assembly linked to his participation in a march during the 2019 protests and unrest.
With Wong in jail, Chan Po-ying, a founding member of the party and Leung's wife, became the last chair of the LSD. Under her leadership, the LSD retained its standing as one of the last opposition parties.
Every fortnight, the LSD had a street booth in Causeway Bay to distribute leaflets and deliver speeches about poverty and protesting against social issues such as imported labour and large-scale development projects.
However, street booth activities, once common among Hong Kong's political groups, landed the LSD in trouble.
In 2023, Chan Po-ying and a party volunteer, Christina Tang, were fined HK$1,000 and HK$800 respectively, after being found guilty of collecting money in a public space without a permit.
In June this year, Chan Po-ying, the LSD's vice-chairs Dickson Chau and Yu Wai-pan, and activist Lee Ying-chi were fined up to HK$6,600 after being found guilty of raising funds and displaying posters in public without a permit in 2023.
By 2025, the LSD street booths no longer displayed banners. Instead, for most of the time, Chan Po-ying stood alone on Great George Street, Causeway Bay, delivering a speech while several police officers monitored and filmed her from across the street.
Speaking at the party's disbandment press conference on June 29, Chau, who was elected vice chair in 2021 to replace Leung, who was in detention, recalled that he joined the LSD in 2011.
LSD members 'hoped to maintain a left-wing voice in Hong Kong and to speak up for the working class… We have faced many difficulties over the past four years,' he said in Cantonese. 'In the past, we produced a lot of creative props to express our opinions, held referendums and staged demonstrations. In the end, we could only give handouts and deliver speeches in the street, which were already as difficult as walking on a tightrope.'
He added that the party did not even have a bank account over the past two years. In 2023, HSBC terminated three accounts of the LSD without giving any reasons.
The party attributed the disbandment to 'tremendous political pressure,' saying they could not provide any further details.
Chau said that in today's Hong Kong, while they were distributing flyers on the streets, people's expressions indicated that it was an impossible task.
'We hope that the next generations can remember how common and ordinary it once was to hand out [political] leaflets on the streets,' he said.