Opinion | Fear and loathing of Leung Chun-ying
Michael Chugani says the chief executive's refusal to play dead when attacked may be one reason his opponents just loathe him
During Barack Obama's 2009 speech to the US Congress about health-care reform, Republican legislator Joe Wilson heckled him by calling the president a liar. Wilson swiftly apologised after fellow legislators rebuked him. Even his party members admitted such disrespectful behaviour was out of place.
In our Legislative Council, respectful behaviour can best be described as an alien concept. Our legislators have progressed from harmlessly hurling bananas. Last July, Wong Yuk-man climbed atop his Legco desk to hurl a drinking glass at Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. Did his fellow lawmakers make him apologise? You must be kidding.
A few weeks back, legislator and Civic Party leader Alan Leong Kah-kit called the chief executive a moron. He pointedly called Leung a moron again when I asked in a TV interview why he so disliked the chief executive. During my time as a journalist in Washington DC and London, I had never heard congressmen or members of parliament name-call the president or prime minister that way.
It is no secret that many Hongkongers loathe the chief executive. Maybe that is why no one made a big deal of Leong calling him a moron. There were no raised eyebrows even when People Power legislator Albert Chan Wai-yip accused him of having triad links in a TV interview with me. Why is Leung so loathed?
To be fair, not everyone dislikes him. Many Hongkongers have told me he's trying to do a good job but is tripped at every step by his political opponents. In politics it is natural to confront or mock your opponents. But Leung's political opponents don't just dislike him; they hate him. The only comparison I can think of is the deep loathing of the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher by Labour MPs, although they had enough political etiquette not to call her a moron.
The loathing for Leung stems partly from the unproven belief that he is an underground communist and partly from the perception that he stole the election from rival Henry Tang Ying-yen by attacking Tang for his illegal basement while lying about his own illegal structures. Hatred of Leung is strongest among Tang loyalists, the most scathing of whom is legislator and former Liberal Party leader James Tien Pei-chun.