As the room for dissent in the city shrinks, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp will find itself increasingly divided between those who want to work within the system, those who choose to confront authorities and those who want to simply opt-out of politics altogether. On Sept. 29, 15 Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers announced that they had chosen not to boycott the upcoming extended Legislative Council term, following a poll showing their supporters were divided on the issue. The lawmakers took the inconclusive poll results as a directive to exercise their own discretion, saying they chose "the lesser of two evils" in order to prevent the pro-Beijing camp from easily passing adverse legislation and to maintain a platform to express pro-democracy opinions. 

• The Legislative Council session will begin Oct. 14 as part of an unprecedented five-year extension of lawmakers’ current terms to accommodate the city’s postponement of planned Sept. 6 elections.
• Many Hong Kong activists have condemned the legislature’s term extension as unconstitutional meddling by mainland China. 
• The 15 lawmakers had initially firmly pledged to boycott the term if a weeklong Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute poll showed that 50 percent of their supporters favored such a move. But instead, the survey found that only 45.8 percent of respondents supported a legislative council boycott while 47.1 percent rejected a boycott, with the remainder neutral. 

With the control of less than one-third of the legislature, the pro-democracy camp lacks the seats needed to halt or pass legislation contrary to the wishes of the pro-Beijing camp. Instead, the legislature serves as a platform to express dissatisfaction. The threat of disqualification under the new national security law will make confrontational legislative tactics such as filibustering even riskier. Given this situation, the remaining pro-democracy moderates in the legislature will hope to use their visibility to garner more seats in the delayed September 2021 legislative elections. 

The other lawmakers who have chosen to boycott the extended term represent a contingent of the pro-democracy camp intent on maintaining a confrontational stance toward Hong Kong authorities to try to push back against Beijing’s encroachment. They see participation in the legislative term as legitimizing potential pro-Beijing legislation without the ability to stop it. In this, their remaining platform will be street protests — an increasingly restricted avenue for expression, given the power authorities now have to crack down on protesters under the national security law. 

• On Sept. 28, two pro-democracy lawmakers from the more extremist, localist side of the grouping decided to boycott the session. Separately, lawmaker and Civic Party member Tanya Chan will also step down from her post due to health concerns and a suspended jail sentence for 2014 protests.
• On Oct. 1, demonstrators will likely turn out on the streets to mark China’s National Day despite a police ban on protests. The national security law and lingering COVID-19 restrictions will likely dampen turnout, which will risk bringing more radical forces out onto the streets who are more likely to confront and clash with the police.