On October 10, Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang delivered his annual policy address. In reply, Cairns Media Magazine republishes this editorial from March 26, 2007 (Hong Kong’s Disgrace Has a Human Face). It’s a reminder that like the military junta in Burma and the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, Tsang has neither a public mandate, nor a shred of legitimacy.
How long must Hong Kong’s people wait for a worthy chief executive, one with the gumption to defend their interests against prejudices and dictates in Beijing? They’ll have to settle for much less until 2012.
To no one’s surprise, the incumbent Donald Tsang has secured a new term (five years) by defeating challenger Alan Leong, 649 votes to 123, in an undemocratic and rigged election at a remote exhibition centre near the city’s airport.
Only 800 people selected from Hong Kong’s nearly seven million residents could vote. Most participants in this “small-circle” charade dutifully heeded the national government’s wish that they return Tsang. Beijing and its cronies manipulated and determined the result far in advance.
The chief executive and his advisers stay ready to drop to their knees and shine the shoes of anyone associated with the central government. Tsang claims to recognize the need for universal suffrage, but looks unlikely to deliver anything meaningful. The most that he and his puppet-masters may concede would be for the “masses” to choose someday among several candidates pre-approved in Beijing. But any system aimed at pleasing the central government also denies the people a free choice.
Politically speaking, Beijing has raped Hong Kong, not for the first time. The main beneficiary of the latest assault then praised the public for taking it “with maturity”. Next he climbed onto an open-topped bus and rode through the streets waving. Some people take pleasure in the vilest deeds.
The few hundred “patriotic” people who gleefully cast ballots in Hong Kong’s “small-circle election” succeeded in exercising political privilege. But they also forfeited something important, large measures of respect from their fellow citizens.
As Hong Kong strives to promote its sophistication and economic potential, overseas audiences need look only to Tsang and the disgraceful political structure that he personifies to glean the truth.
Nursing their wounds from political abuses, Hong Kong’s people wait for a courageous leader. They wait and wait.
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