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The Frontier (Hong Kong)

The Frontier (前線) is a pro-democracy political group in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. It was established on 26 August 1996. The group is headed by convenor Emily Lau Wai-hing since its establishment as a loose group of individual pro-democracy activitists.

The main platform of The Frontier calls for universal and equal suffrage, human rights and rule of law, and demands the right to draft Hong Kong's own constitution.

Among the pro-democracy political parties, The Frontier has adopted a relatively radical stance on political issues. It called for immediate universal suffrage since the establishment of the HKSAR, by means of redrafting the Basic Law, the mini-constitution of Hong Kong. (The Basic Law guaranteed universal suffrage but imposed constraints on the time table). It had also launched campaigns to demand the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Mr. Tung Chee-hwa, to step down.

On the economics front, the group has been pressing for a competitive policy in Hong Kong to curb anti-competitive and monopolistic practices.

On livelihood issues, the group adopted a leftist stance. It demanded better labour protection, such as legislating for minimum wages and maximum working hours, and advocated unemployment protection. It also demanded better social welfare and reduction of rents in public housing estates.

In both the 1998 and 2000 Legislative Council (LegCo) election, members of The Frontier won five seats in the geographical constituencies (some of them run under the banner of other groups):

In April 2002, a number of former members ("Young Turks") of the Democratic Party (Hong Kong) (DP) who have earlier formed a group called the Social Democratic Forum(SDF) left the DP and joined The Frontier.

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