Legco set to defeat motion to thank Leung Chun-ying on policy address
The Legislative Council was set to defeat the motion to thank Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying for his policy address, as a three-day debate began yesterday.
Six pan-democrats filed amendments to the traditional vote of thanks tabled by House Committee chairman Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen to instead express "deep regret" over Leung's lack of action on housing, universal suffrage and the elderly.
The Democratic Party's Sin Chung-kai also criticised the speech as a failure as it did not arrest the fall in Leung's popularity.
The party's Wu Chi-wai said: "We understand that it takes time to turn land into houses. But the major problem is that the market does not trust that Leung could stabilise property prices [in the short term]."
Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah said the address revealed Leung's ignorance about economic development.
He said there were many paragraphs on building closer economic ties with the mainland, but hardly any mention about attracting foreign investment.
The pan-democrats vowed last week to veto the motion of thanks, which is expected to go to a vote tomorrow. The motion requires a majority in both the functional and geographical constituencies and is likely to fail in the latter, where 18 of the 35 lawmakers are pan-democrats.
Industrial-sector lawmaker Lam Tai-fai said he thought Leung would be like Moses, leading "Hong Kong out of the Red Sea. Instead, we are still floating aimlessly on the ocean".
Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah sat through most of yesterday's nine-hour debate on the economy. He said there were signs the economy improved late last year.
