Johnny Mak

Mak in 2015.

Johnny Mak Ip-sing (Chinese: 麥業成; born 1960) is a pro-Taiwan and pro-democracy politician in Hong Kong. He has been a Yuen Long District Councillor since 1991 and is the current Chairman of the Democratic Alliance.

Biography

Growing up in a pro-Taiwan background, Mak was a graduate from the Tamkang University in Taiwan, studying Japanese language. He was the president of the Hong Kong Federation of Taiwan Universities Alumni Association from 2007 to 2011.^[1] He joined the democracy movement during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He was member of the first major pro-democracy party United Democrats of Hong Kong which later transformed into the Democratic Party. In the 1991 District Board elections, he became member of the Yuen Long District Council through Yuen Long Town South and was re-elected through Fung Cheung in 1994. He has since been holding this seat.

Mak was also a member of the pro-Taiwan 123 Democratic Alliance which was dissolved in 2000 before he joined the radical democratic party The Frontier. He contested in the 1995 Regional Council election and 1998 Legislative Council election with Yum Sin-ling for the 123 Democratic Alliance but was not elected. After the 2003 July 1 protests, he set up the local electoral alliance Yuen Long Tin Shui Wai Democratic Alliance with Albert Chan Wai-yip fort the 2003 District Council election. He became member of the Executive Committee of the League of Social Democrats (LSD). During the intra-party factional struggle, he sided with former Chairman Wong Yuk-man and issued a public letter to criticise the incumbent Chairman Andrew To Kwan-hang.^[2] He later quit the party with Wong and became Vice-Chairman of the new party, People Power which set up by Wong.

In 2011 District Council election, he became the only People Power candidate who won a seat in the election. In 2012, he disputed with the party over the candidacy in the 2012 Legislative Council election. He quit the party on 28 June 2012 and ran under the banner of the Democratic Alliance, but failed to be elected with 2,896 votes.^[3]

On the issue of the Occupy Central movement campaigned by the pan-democrats with the aims at pressing the Beijing government to implement genuine universal suffrage, Mak was accused by pro-Beijing newspaper Tai Kung Pao of working for the Military Intelligence Bureau of the Taiwanese National Security Bureau. Mak dismissed the accusation, saying it was a joke.^[4]

References