Changes in Political Stance
It has been alleged that the party began leaning towards the pro-government camp within a few years before the transfer of sovereignty. Under Tung Chee Hwa's administration, it was generally considered a government-ally. Since Donald Tsang took over in November 2005, the party has continued its generally pro-government stance.
On 6 July 2003, James Tien Pei Chun the leader of Liberal Party resigned from the Executive Council and forced the government to delay the second reading of the legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law. This exception to the party's usual pro-government policy was popular and temporarily calmed friction between the pro-government and the pro-democracy supporters. Some leftists, however, felt that this demonstrated the opportunistic nature of the party.
At almost the same time, the Liberal Party decided to shift its political stance from "all Legislative Council members should be directly elected in 2007" to "Hong Kong should become more democratic." The founder and ex-chair of Liberal Party, Allen Lee Peng Fei, decided to leave the party since he believed the change was against public sentiments. Their stance in universal suffrage was then similar to that of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB); namely, that universal suffrage should be implemented in or after 2012 rather than in 2007/8.
In 13 January 2006, the Liberal Party has opposed Chief Executive Donald Tsang's plan to implement a five-day work week for most civil servants, due to concerns that this would put too much pressure on small to medium-sized enterprises to cut their working week to five days as well. The change went ahead and was considerably adopted in the private sector. There is no planned legislation to force private employers to commit to a five-day working week.
Read more about this topic: Liberal Party (Hong Kong)
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