Cyd Ho

Cyd Ho Sau-lan 何秀蘭
Member of the Legislative Council
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 September 2008
Preceded by	Choy So-yuk
Constituency	Hong Kong Island
Majority	9.85%
In office 10 September 2000 – 12 September 2004
Preceded by	Christine Loh
Succeeded by	Audrey Eu
Majority	9.97%
In office 24 May 1998 – 10 September 2000
Preceded by	(none)
Succeeded by	Nelson Wong
Constituency	New Territories East
Majority	10.81%
Personal details
Born	24 July 1954 (1954-07-24) (age 57)  Hong Kong
Nationality	Chinese
Political party	The Frontier Civic Act-up
Residence	Hong Kong
Alma mater	University of Waterloo
Profession	Legislative Councillor

Cyd Ho Sau-lan (simplified Chinese: 何秀兰; traditional Chinese: 何秀蘭) is a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) for the Hong Kong Island constituency.

Cyd Ho is a founding member of The Frontier, a pro-democracy political group, and since 2006, founding councillor of the World Future Council.

She has garnered a reputation for promoting universal suffrage, rule of law, human rights, and equal opportunity, as well as advancement in the interests of women, homosexuals and other minority groups.^{[citation needed]}

Education

Ho studied at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She worked in the textile trading industry from 1979 to 1995.

Career

In 1991, she helped Emily Lau during the election campaign, the first open direct election of LegCo in Hong Kong. In 1993, she founded the liberal pressure group "United Ants" with other pro-democracy political activists. In 1995, she worked as an assistant to Margaret Ng, a lawmaker representing the legal profession in LegCo. In 1996, along with other political activists, she founded The Frontier.

She was elected a legislative councillor for the geographical constituency of New Territories East in 1998 in the first LegCo election since the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the UK to China. She was re-elected in the c in 2000. She chaired bills committees such as the 2004 Education (Revised) Bill and the 2004 Examination Authority Bill, and was vice-chair of the panel on environmental affairs. She chaired the Sub-committee under the Home Affair Panel to study questions of discrimination based on sexual orientation between 2000 and 2004.

She was elected as a District Council member of the Central and Western district via the Kwun Lung (觀龍) constituency in November 2003, unseating veteran Ip Kwok-him of the DAB with a margin of 64 votes. She also supported members of other pro-democracy political groups such as Civic Act-up, which were also contesting seats in the Wanchai district council.

In 2004, she, together with James To Kun Sun, Frederick Fung Kin Kee, Wong Sing Chi, Mak Kwok Fung, attempted to cross the border and meet Beijing officials at Shenzhen, to request for a faster pace of democratisation in Hong Kong.

The 2004 Legco election

The 2004 Legislative Council election returned candidates to office based on a party-list proportional representation system. There were four viable tickets running for election for the Hong Kong Island constituency. The left was represented by the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong's ticket, consisting of Ma Lik and Choy So-yuk; and the centrist ticket was represented by Rita Fan.

The pan-democratic camp decided, after strategising, to put up two tickets for election: the Democratic Party's ticket with Martin Lee and Yeung Sum, and Audrey Eu and Cyd Ho's ticket. The thinking was that the remainder vote on both these tickets was sufficient in order to return all four candidates to office, providing that voters in the pan-democratic camp were coordinated effectively. Cyd Ho was defeated by a slim margin (815 out of a total of about 350 000, or 0.23%) to her nearest DAB rival, Choy So-yuk.

Originally, the slogan "1+1=4" was taken as a way to strategically allocate votes between the two pan-democratic camp tickets, namely that a spouse from each couple would vote for each ticket. Conspiracy theorists claim that, during the final days leading up to the election, the Democratic Party believed it could secure a seat for their third candidate, Lai Chi-Keung. The Democratic Party hence allegedly requested all supporters of the pan-democratic camp in the Hong Kong Island geographical constituency to vote for them, claiming that Audrey Eu's star presence on the other ticket was strong enough to skew votes to the other ticket.

In the end, Lai ended up a few hundred votes short of Cyd Ho, costing them both the chance for a seat. This ultimately benefited Cyd Ho's DAB rival Choy So-yuk. A number of disgruntled voters of the pan-democratic camp demanded that then-DP Chairman Yeung Sum and Founding Chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming both step down in consequence.^{[citation needed]}

Some pointed out that Ho's support for legalizing gay marriage during the election campaign was a fatal blow, because her speech angered and had alienated a significant number of voters.^{[citation needed]}

Post-election

In addition to remaining as a key member of the Frontier until 2006, Ho hosted her own radio programmes on two local radio stations in 2006 - on RTHK every Tuesday evening and on PRHK every Wednesday night. She currently is hosting a radio show on the internet radio station MyRadio on Thursday night (2200-2300 HKT).

In 2006, she quit the Frontier and became the chairperson of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor and the co-convener of Project Civil Referendum, a scheme to pilot and promote the idea of holding a referendum in Hong Kong.

In 2007, due to the death of Ma Lik vacating a Hong Kong Island Legislative Council seat, she originally decided to run in the by-election, but later she rejected. Also, she gave up renewing the seat of the district council in order to prepare her participation in 2008 LegCo election.

2008 LegCo election

Ho stood for and was returned in the Hong Kong Island geographical constituency for the Hong Kong legislative election, 2008. She finished with the fifth highest number of vote in the six-member constituency, 30,887, or 9.85%. Her running mate in 2004, Audrey Eu of the Civic Party, got 30,362.

See also

• Politics of Hong Kong
• List of political parties in Hong Kong

External links

• Official website of Cyd Ho
• Official website of Legislative Council
• Councillor at World Future Council

Legislative Council of Hong Kong
New constituency	Member of Legislative Council Representative for New Territories East constituency 1998–2000 Served alongside: Emily Lau, Andrew Cheng, Andrew Wong, Lau Kong-wah	Succeeded by Nelson Wong
Preceded by Christine Loh	Member of Legislative Council Representative for Hong Kong Island constituency 2000–2004 Served alongside: Martin Lee, Yeung Sum, Gary Cheng, Audrey Eu, Choy So-yuk	Succeeded by Audrey Eu
Preceded by Choy So-yuk	Member of Legislative Council Representative for Hong Kong Island constituency 2008 – present Served alongside: Jasper Tsang, Kam Nai-wai, Tanya Chan, Audrey Eu, Regina Ip	Incumbent
Party political offices
New political party	Chairman of Civic Act-up 2003 – present	Incumbent
Order of precedence
Preceded by Kam Nai-wai Member of the Legislative Council	Hong Kong order of precedence Member of the Legislative Council	Succeeded by Starry Lee Member of the Legislative Council

Persondata
Name	Ho, Cyd
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	24 July 1954
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death