Public Eye

Leung has neither a mandate from the tycoons nor the people

Let's stop all this 'day after' nonsense. The day after Leung Chun-ying won the mud-slinging chief executive election, everybody gave their two-cents worth about reuniting the community. They talked about putting the campaign nastiness behind us. They urged moving forward together as one. Who are they kidding? Has everyone forgotten why our community is so polarised? The grass roots and leftists lined up behind Leung. Big business backed Henry Tang Ying-yen. It was a class war. There is no such thing as uniting the classes. The ordinary people want affordable housing, higher wages, lower rents, and a narrowing of the wealth gap. Big business wants the opposite. Affordable housing means thinner profits for the tycoons and diminished home values for middle-class flat owners. Higher wages means less money for bosses. Narrowing the wealth gap means making poor people richer or rich people poorer. The tycoons can't stand Leung even though some were strong-armed by Beijing into voting for him. The grass roots detest the tycoons. Leung has neither a mandate from the tycoons nor from the people. He was elected chief executive by 689 voters in a city of seven million people. Do you expect him to get everyone to smoke a peace pipe, shake hands and live happily ever after? Please come down from cloud cuckoo land.

An early lesson for C.Y. in perception and reality

Reality is perception. Perception is reality. Public Eye is astonished incoming chief executive C.Y. Leung hasn't grasped this. We don't know the truth behind why he spent an hour at the central government's liaison office the morning after his election victory. He could have gone there for the reasons he stated - to discuss closer economic ties and arrangements for his formal appointment as Hong Kong's leader. But the perception is the liaison office meddled in our affairs by making sure Leung won. Leung is painfully aware of this perception. Yet he chose to be insensitive. He is now knee-deep in a new perception that his visit was to thank the liaison office for his victory. Surely, closer ties and his formal appointment were hardly matters of urgency. Our advice to Leung: think like the people do. Their perception can make or break you.

Playing musical chairs with the same old tired faces

Is it possible to make changes without changing things? C.Y. Leung was the candidate who promised change as chief executive. Now he says he'll change things without changing things? Huh? He says he'll look within the current administration for people to fill top jobs in his new administration. But that's not even old wine in a new bottle. That's old wine in an old bottle with a new cork. People expected the wine-loving Tang, who lost the election, to do that. But people are expecting new wine from Leung. They are tired of the same old faces whose failed policies got us in the hole we're now in. Letting them keep their jobs or moving them around is not change, it's playing musical chairs. The people want change, not games.

Railroading a fare increase to make the wealth gap worse

So C.Y. Leung wants to fix the wealth gap. To do that, he must first fix the greed. How deep is the greed? The answer is in yesterday's headlines. The MTR Corp - which is already sitting on a mountain of money - still wants to raise fares even though it made nearly HK$15 billion net profit last year. Its service sucks - constantly overcrowded trains and breakdowns - yet it wants to suck more money from the people. Where does this money go? To shareholders and already overpaid top MTR officials. It's this kind of sickening greed that causes the wealth gap. Take note, C.Y.