No one likes being called a lame duck, and the scowl on the face of Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen confirmed that he is no more amenable to this insult than anyone else. Yet the accusation was made, again, this week at the Legislative Council's question and answer session, and he really has no one but himself to blame - since he keeps stressing that there is a limit to what he can do during his remaining time in office.
Hong Kong, like many other jurisdictions, has a fixed term of service for its head of government, and the problem of lame-duck-ery arises in every place where the end of that period approaches. In the United States, presidents are said to enter this hinterland halfway through their incumbency, when the political chatting class starts focusing on successors - and on ways of making the dog years of office either as painless or as difficult as possible, depending on their political views.
American presidents do not necessarily succumb to this void as they contemplate life in their shiny new presidential libraries. President Barack Obama, for example, is midway through his first term and is looking ahead to fighting another election before he is constitutionally bound to step down. Precisely because he has an election in mind, he is demonstrating vigour and determination to act on a number of fronts. President Franklin Roosevelt, who was allowed to serve longer, spent a large part of his last term relentlessly pursuing long-term plans, which made it difficult to see him as a lame duck.
Tsang is in a different position even though, like American presidents, he is allowed to serve only two terms and is midway through his second term. He, of course, never fought an election, and merely took part in a preordained contest among 800 voters. Not only was the contest preordained, but the outcome was determined by the leaders in Beijing who, at least in theory, have no part in the election although they have the power to veto the outcome.
This makes the chief executive accountable primarily to a body in Beijing, which itself is not elected and has as much familiarity with accountability as I have with quantum physics. Thus Tsang is in a very difficult position. He exacerbates the difficulties by being more of an order-taker than a leader or initiator, a mindset acquired during many years of subservience in the colonial bureaucracy.
His opponents zero in on his vulnerability, like Hong Kong shoppers in search of a bargain. They can almost sense his fear of doing anything to upset his masters and his determination to do what bureaucrats do best, namely ensuring that no decision is too big to be delayed.
However, there is one kind of decision that bureaucrats actually like taking - the construction of so-called legacy projects. They do this by using taxpayers' money to build lavish structures that will outlive their time in office.