United you stand, divided you fall. Surely the pan-democrats know that. But they subdivided themselves and fought against each other - all in the name of democracy. Do they even understand the meaning of the word? With such public anger over Leung Chun-ying's leadership - fuelled further by national education - Legislative Council seats were there to be won. But the democracy camp failed to get even its traditional 60 per cent voter support. It won just 27 of the 70 Legco seats. The pro-establishment camp got 43. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. When the democracy camp can't even speak with one voice, how can it possibly lead the charge in making sure that the universal suffrage that's been promised starting in 2017 will be real democracy?
Public Eye asked a week ago how long it would take C.Y. Leung to understand that national education was belly-up. He tried to keep the corpse alive for three more days after that before he finally declared it dead. He understood only after tens of thousands of Hongkongers massed to demand its burial. The lesson for Leung is that he can't fight the people and expect to win. The lesson for the people is that Leung will listen only if they bludgeon him with people power. He's shown us that he doesn't know when to fight and when to fold. He tried to ram through his government restructuring plan but was humiliated by legislators. The writing was on the wall that people feared national education. What political sense did it make to go against the people if, as he claimed, national education was not a directive from the central authorities? We don't know if it was, but if it wasn't then Leung is anything but a savvy leader in tune with the people.
When all else fails, blame someone else. That's what C.Y. Leung did in bowing to people power on national education. He insisted he backed it only because he inherited it from his predecessor. Oh, please, give us a break. If he really didn't care either way why did he risk his already damaged popularity by fighting so hard for so long? Leung ditched or overhauled other inherited policies that faced much less opposition. The My Home Purchase scheme and hospital beds for pregnant mainlanders spring to mind. So why did he cling on to national education until a mass protest forced his hand? We had hoped for honest and imaginative new leadership when Leung was elected. We haven't seen it yet.