Opinion | Political party system will work in Hong Kong
Frank Ching says Beijing has every reason to welcome a political party system here, not least because it will make the city governable
Recurrent rumours that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying will be dumped by Beijing reflect not reality, but dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong government. But the problems have more to do with the system than the individual.
The first two chief executives, Tung Chee-hwa and Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, suffered public opprobrium too. As long as the chief executive is not popularly elected, he or she will not be seen as legitimate. And as long as the chief executive is not supported by a majority in the Legislative Council, there will always be problems of governance.
The Basic Law was drafted with the idea of continuing the executive-led government created by the British. But that system worked because it was a dictatorship, albeit a benevolent one.
China insisted on the continuation of an executive-led government after 1997 while agreeing to an elected legislature. That created an unworkable system. Even if, by 2020, both the chief executive and the entire legislature are elected by universal suffrage, Hong Kong may still be ungovernable if there is no linkage between the executive and the legislature. Every government needs a parliamentary majority.
The question is whether a democratic Hong Kong will institute a presidential or parliamentary system. What is prescribed in the Basic Law is closer to a presidential system, like that in the US. But there, a president can get things done only if his political party also controls the congress. If the opposition party controls it - or even just one of the two houses, as is currently the case - the result is often deadlock.
In a parliamentary system, however, the executive by definition controls the legislature and hence has little difficulty getting its programme passed.