We’ve been here before. In June of this year we noted that the League of Social Democrats—which had “held three seats in Hong Kong’s legislature at its height,” and whose Che-on-T-shirt socialism had not been enough to save it from the Chinese Communist Party’s assault on Hong Kong democracy—would soon be disbanding.
At the time, the League was “the third major pro-democracy party to meet its end in recent years,” Hong Kong Free Press reported. By then it was no longer possible for any still formally existing opposition party in Hong Kong to field candidates for the legislature, which means that they could no longer function as political parties.
Now another organization in this position, reportedly the last, is calling it quits: the Democratic Party (Reuters, December 14, 2025).
Hong Kong’s last major opposition party disbanded on Sunday after a vote by its members, the culmination of Chinese pressure on the city’s remaining liberal voices in a years-long security crackdown.
The Democratic Party has been Hong Kong’s flagship opposition since its founding three years before the financial hub’s return to Chinese rule from Britain in 1997. It used to sweep city-wide legislative elections and push China on democratic reforms and upholding freedom.
However, mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 against a perceived tightening of China’s grip on the city prompted Beijing to enact a sweeping national security law to stifle dissent….
The vote to disband comes a week after Hong Kong held a “patriots only” legislative council election and one day before media mogul and China critic Jimmy Lai receives a verdict in a landmark national security trial.
China’s move in 2021 to overhaul Hong Kong’s electoral system—allowing only those vetted as “patriots” to run for public office— marginalised the Democratic Party by removing it from mainstream politics.
Of the 121 members who voted on whether to disband, 117 voted in favor and 4 abstained.
