Third Side | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chairman | Tik Chi-yuen |
| Vice-Chairmen |
|
| Director General | Chan Ka-wai |
| Deputy General | Marie Pang |
| Founded | 3 January 2016; 9 years ago (2016-01-03) |
| Headquarters | 11/F, Wo Foo Commercial Building, 574Nathan Road,Yau Ma Tei,Kowloon, Hong Kong |
| Membership(2016) |  68 |
| Ideology | Liberalism (HK) Centrism |
| Political position | Centrist camp |
| Colours | Dark green |
| Executive Council | 0 / 33 |
| Legislative Council | 1 / 90 |
| District Councils | 0 / 470 |
| Website | |
| thirdside | |
| Third Side | |||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 新思維 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 新思维 | ||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | new thinking | ||||||||||||
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| This article is part ofa series on |
| Centrism in Hong Kong |
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Third Side (Chinese:新思維;lit. 'new thinking') is apolitical party inHong Kong which claims to offer a "third road" to democracy, positioned between thepro-democracy camp and thepro-Beijing camp. It is led byTik Chi-yuen, who was a co-founder and longtime member of theDemocratic Party until his expulsion in 2015 for promoting political reforms proposed by the Chinese central government.[1]
Third Side is led by chairmanTik Chi-yuen, the former vice-chairman of the Democratic Party, and vice-convenorWong Sing-chi, a former Democrat legislator. Wong was expelled by the Democrats in July 2015 for urging legislators to accept theBeijing-decreed political reform package. Tik subsequently quit in September, citing differences on the pursuit of democracy.[2]
The party's 20-member preparatory committee included former Democrats Chan Ka-wai and Chow Yick-hay, andCentaline Property Agency co-founderShih Wing-ching, who was also fromPath of Democracy, the think tank set up by fellow moderate and formerCivic Party legislatorRonny Tong Ka-wah.[1] Others includedHung Fook Tong executive director Ricky Szeto Wing-fu andShue Yan University associate professor Lee Shu-kam. The party was inaugurated at a 7 January ceremony.[2]
Wong Sing-chi was a candidate in thelegislative by-election in early 2016, but lost the race by coming in the fifth place.
After the by-election, the party once considered filling candidates in the2016 legislative election.[1] And yet, on 22 July 2016, ten members of the Third Side quit which included two vice-chairmen Marcus Liu Tim-shing and Ben Kuen Ping-yiu, who were all part of the team that was going to run in the New Territories East constituency. They stated that the party had fallen short of their expectation to forge a new brand of politics perched between the two traditional blocs. The party argued that their departure was due to the party's decision not to field any candidates in New Territories East in the upcoming election.[3] The party failed to win any seat in the election.
On 19 December 2017, Macau denied entry to Third Side member Wong Chun-long for security reasons despite inviting him to attend a conference on Macau's finance and information technology sectors.[4]
In December 2021, it was reported that Wong Chun-long, Third Side candidate in the New Territories North West constituency in that month's LegCo election, had posed as a young girl on online discussion forumLIHKG. Wong started a political debate under the name "Little Sister" while claiming to be part of the "yellow" (pro-democracy) camp.[5]
In initial stage, Third Side was considered as a "middle-of-the-road" political group between the pro-democracy camp and pro-Beijing camp. and had a direct competition with pro-democracyAlvin Yeung and pro-BeijingHolden Chow in the 2016 New Territories East by-election. However, during2016 Hong Kong legislative election, it was reported that pro-Beijing camp once considered allocating votes toTik Chi-yuen, who was running in the election in theKowloon West constituency in the hope of defeating pro-democracy and localist candidates.[6]
In theNovember 2018 Kowloon West by-election, Tik endorsed pro-Beijing candidateChan Hoi-yan together with other pro-Beijing politicians.[7][8]
Third Side is considered the sole non-establishment party in theLegislative Council (LegCo) following the 2021 legislative election, in which Tik was elected to theSocial Welfare constituency.[9] Tik did not join the other 89 LegCo member-elects in calling for an investigation into the pro-democracy media outletStand News after policeraided its offices on 29 December 2021.[10] However, on 16 February 2022, Tik, along with the other 89 members of the LegCo, made a statement of gratitude toChinese Communist Party general secretaryXi Jinping for his "guidance" in fighting theCOVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.[11]
| Election | Number of popular votes | % of popular votes | GC seats | FC seats | EC seats | Total seats | +/− | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 13,461 | 0.62 | 0 | 0 | 0 / 70 |  | ||
| 2021 | 4,066 | 0.31 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 / 90 |  1 | 9th |
| Election | Number of popular votes | % of popular votes | Total elected seats | +/− |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2,011 | 0.14 | 0 / 431 | 0 |
