Hong Kong gets a real election campaign, almost by accident

News Type: Event — Seeded on Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:46 AM EDT

Article Source: The Times

Hong Kong is in the final week of an election campaign, for the aptly named post of chief executive, that has looked surprisingly like the real thing — billboards, baby-kissing, walkabouts, face-to-face televised debates and all. What makes all this democratic bustle surprising is that the end is guaranteed to be an anticlimax.

No matter what wares may be on sale, the seven million people of Hong Kong have no way to buy or reject them. They have no vote. On Sunday, the winner will be declared by a 796-strong electoral college, people selected by business and professional leaders, most of whom keep a watchful weather eye on Beijing. These same people decided who could run in the first place.

China created this committee at the time of the British handover of Hong Kong to Beijing ten years ago, and twice since then it has shown how seriously it took its responsibilities to rock no boats, carefully presenting China's favoured candidate as the sole nominee for the closed-door election. But this time, to the surprise of Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties, the membership of the committee had changed just enough for it to nominate not one, but two, candidates, one of them from the democratic camp.

The merest whiff of competition was enough to stir up genuine debate. The challenger Alan Leong, a barrister and a pro-democracy member of the Legislative Council, knew that he had little chance of winning. The incumbent chief executive, Donald Tsang, was nominated by 641 committee members, people unlikely to be swayed by the thrill of democratic debate. Mr Leong set out to put Mr Tsang on the spot, on the subject of democracy itself, and has succeeded rather well.

Published to:

CopenhagenDK's Column, All of Newsvine
Groups: Politics in Asia
Regions: China , Hong Kong

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