The growing crisis over Hong Kong?s anti-subversion bill has raised the prospect the government will become unable to push important policies through the legislature.

Tens of thousands of people surrounded Hong Kong?s legislature yesterday to denounce the government?s planned anti-subversion bill, adding more pressure on the territory?s embattled chief executive.

Organisers said some 50,000 people converged on the heart of the city for a candlelight vigil a week after hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets to denounce the bill, the city?s biggest demonstration since after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Hong Kong?s Beijing-appointed leader, Tung Chee-hwa, is facing his biggest leadership crisis since he took office in 1997 when the former British colony was returned to Chinese rule.

A Hong Kong Cabinet Minister who was a key legislative ally quit on Sunday, throwing Tung?s ruling coalition into disarray and forcing him to announce a humiliating postponement of the final reading of the bill.

Tung no longer appears to have enough support in the legislature to push through important government policies, and calls for his resignation are growing. Organisers of the vigil said many people felt they could no longer trust the bill in Tung?s hands.

?This law is simply in the wrong hands?

Critics say it threatens basic civil rights and could lead to more interference from Beijing in Hong Kong?s affairs. Tung is widely blamed for a string of policy blunders, mismanaging the recent SARS crisis and failing to revive the sickly economy. Many people in the territory believe he has tried to bulldoze the subversion bill through under pressure from Beijing.

?We can no longer trust the government,? said Richard Tsoi, spokesman for the Civil Human Rights Front, which is organising the protest. ?There is now even the situation where nobody believes that the government will not abuse the bill when it is made into law.?

Final readings of the bill had been scheduled for yesterday.?We are afraid this law is simply in the wrong hands,? said Jacquelynne Chen, one of protesters who took to the streets last week.

Hong Kong is required by its constitution to enact a subversion law, which Beijing wants to pass as soon as possible to prevent hostile forces from using this territory as a base to subvert the mainland. Organisers of the vigil want the law passed only after universal suffrage is established in Hong Kong and people can finally choose their own leaders.

Hong Kong?s constitution allows for universal suffrage after 2007, but the government has repeatedly refused to open the issue for debate. ?The anti-subversion bill is such a contentious issue, there is no need to talk about it now,? Tsoi said. ?The time to do it would be when there is already democracy. Only then can we have some assurance that any scope for abuse of the law would be limited.?

Tan Ee Lyn