Lai SeeCan Anson Chan put the past behind her?

ANSON Chan Fang On-sang, according to today's Sunday Morning Post poll, does not have the support of the public to be the next Chief Secretary. Yet, within the next two weeks, the Secretary for the Civil Service will move into that position almost by default, since there is literally no one else available. Former Secretary for Education and Manpower John Chan Cho-chak has been out of the running since he decided to quit at the height of the political reform row last winter, apparently preferring to place his bets on Hong Kong's post-1997 political masters. And although the talented Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Michael Sze Cho-cheung, was often talked of as another contender, when it came to the crunch he was simply too junior, and would have aroused too much jealousy among other civil servants. Yet the Hong Kong Polling and Business Research survey shows both would apparently have been preferable to Mrs Chan. Twenty per cent of those surveyed said they would like to see Mr Chan succeed Sir David Ford, while an equal number nominated Mr Sze, andonly 16 per cent suggested Mrs Chan. Admittedly a much larger 41 per cent expressed no opinion, while three per cent suggested other candidates, and no one is suggesting such results should be used as a way of choosing senior officials. But, at the least, they do show how urgently the new Chief Secretary needs to tackle the task of improving public perceptions of herself. These have hardly been improved by Mrs Chan's recent performance, which has seen what should have been a strong Government defence of its new policy on expatriate civil servants, as necessary to comply with the Bill of Rights, never adequately put across. Instead the Secretary for the Civil Service chose to go on leave throughout much of the row and, even when in Hong Kong, rarely appeared in public to defend the Government. Mrs Chan did speak more to the press about this issue than any other for many years. Nonetheless it is all too easy to imagine how quickly the controversy might have been defused had it been in the hands of a publicity-conscious policy secretary like Mr Sze. Even before the present row, Mrs Chan was in trouble with legislators for allegedly trying to avoid answering questions on special privileges for expatriate civil servants. Appointed legislator Anna Wu Hung-yuk complained the Secretary for Civil Service intervened to prevent her receiving the customary written version of an oral answer on the issue, which would seem to curtail the chances of being asked any difficult follow-up questions. Yet, despite such a shaky start, none of this need mean Mrs Chan will not make a good Chief Secretary. Certainly she has many of the right qualities. Tough and determined, Mrs Chan is one of the few officials who has proved she can stand up to China, a crucial qualification for anyone sitting by Governor Chris Patten's side. She has even endured personalised attacks from Beijing, such as over Container Terminal Nine. But since, at the age of 53, Mrs Chan is unlikely to stay on beyond the change of sovereignty, she is free from any of the pressure China can exert on younger civil servants. Yet Mrs Chan is far from a ''yes-man'', who will do whatever her boss asks. Indeed she pointedly held back from personally endorsing the Governor's political reform proposals earlier this year, at a time when policy secretaries were coming under pressureto do so. That means she should be able to give Mr Patten the sort of frank, and sometimes unpalatable, advice some suspect is somewhat lacking among the small circle at Government House. Mrs Chan's elevation will also give a timely boost to the beleaguered policy of localisation. Having joined the administration in 1962, at a time when it was still difficult for locals to do so, and subsequently led the fight for women's rights within the civil service, Mrs Chan has first-hand evidence of the historical legacy of discrimination. Indeed there are those, such as legislator Jimmy McGregor, who once worked with Mrs Chan in the administration, who believe she had little to do with the new policy of allowing expatriates to switch to local terms, and may be privately unenthusiastic about it. Certainly her appointment should put a stop to the ''jobs for the boys'' controversies, over lucrative posts for expatriates, that have plagued the civil service. But the real question on which Mrs Chan's success as Chief Secretary may hinge is whether she can put her past behind her. For, although it is seven years since the famous Kwok Ah-nui case, in which Mrs Chan was unfairly hounded by the media for putting a five-year-old girl in care and placing her mother in a mental ward, she still seems unable to forgive the press for what happened then, refusing all requests for interviews, and frequently shunning contact with journalists. And until Mrs Chan recognises it is time to let bygones be bygones, and that the number two in the Hong Kong Government needs to communicate with the public through the press, then a question mark will always hang over her ability to perform as an effective Chief Secretary.

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