Public Eye | Innocence lost in the dirty fight to choose Hong Kong’s chief executive
None of the four potential candidates can hope to capture the respect afforded previous leaders, who inhabited more innocent times
So who do you want as your next chief executive? Let’s rephrase that. Who do you think Beijing wants as your next chief executive? The affable, straight-talking but inexperienced retired judge Woo Kwok-hing? Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah, who gave us food trucks and defined the middle class as people who like coffee and French movies? Legislator Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who mocked Tsang as a failed finance chief? Or Leung Chun-ying, whose polarising trait has overshadowed his achievements as chief executive?
I’ve interviewed all four on television. You can’t help but like Woo. He has a raw innocence the others lack. But is that a political shield or an Achilles heel? Soft-spoken and unassuming, Tsang is the perennial pessimist who doles out one-off sweeteners but stuffs huge surpluses into our overflowing public purse for a rainy day. He can’t see the downpour for the rain.
Ip is the makeover woman. Reviled for championing Article 23 legislation while security chief and mocked for her hairstyle, she returned from an American sojourn a softer woman more in tune with ordinary people. But is the makeover a mask as many suspect?
Leung’s Achilles heel is not just a single heel but his whole character. Honesty requires acknowledgement that he has achieved much more than his predecessors to improve livelihoods. But he has let his combative character get the better of him, allowing adversaries to define him as Hong Kong’s most loathed leader.
