Now that Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen finds himself unfavourably compared to his hapless predecessor, Tung Chee-hwa, he appears to be trapped in the vortex which forces flaying politicians further and further down a hole from which they are unlikely to emerge.
This impression was confirmed this week by Tsang's response to accusations of nepotism. He unwittingly fuelled his descent by ignoring every lesson of political behaviour. The great minds in Government House think they know better and launched him on a disastrous course of counter-attack.
As a young and minor political party official employed to buzz around the corridors of Parliament in London, it was drummed into me that politicians in personal trouble have but two alternatives. The first was 'don't complain, don't explain'; that seemed to work best when the media got overexcited by very little indeed. Option number two was called upon when explanation was unavoidable. In this instance, speed was of the essence and the response had to be seen as measured, not petulant and certainly not in the form of a suggestion of conspiracies because, once the person in trouble attributes conspiratorial behaviour to others, the public will assume that conspiracy is nurtured in the bosom of the accused.
Tsang and his advisers took the brave decision to ignore these relatively well-established ground rules and initially remained mute, then allowed some of their acolytes to mutter some disparaging words and finally allowed the chief executive to belatedly respond. In so doing, he mixed petulance with accusations of conspiracy against the government. An issue that could have been tackled with relative ease has now lodged in the public mind as another indication that something is seriously wrong with this administration.
The accusations are trivial: Tsang is alleged to have helped out his in-laws who sell light bulbs by introducing a scheme to encourage the purchase of energy-saving bulbs. And it has been suggested that his influence helped his sister-in-law obtain prior settlement of claims for redress arising out of the Lehman minibond scandal. In both instances, the evidence of direct nepotism is tenuous and, in the matter of light bulbs, even more so.
However, the Tsang regime has only itself to blame. Its arrogant behaviour encourages the idea of cronyism and indifference to the needs of ordinary people. A slew of government appointments to official posts and bodies that the chief executive controls suggest that what matters to this administration is who you know, not what you know.