Opinion | Accident-prone Paul Chan a liability for Leung Chun-ying's government
Albert Cheng says initial scepticism over traffic incident confirms that the scandal-plagued development secretary has lost public credibility
Beleaguered Development Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, who has lost all credibility after a string of scandals, received treatment at a hospital after being involved in a traffic accident last Sunday. He suffered slight injuries.
When the news broke, the first reaction of most people was that he was trying to use an accident as an excuse to enable him to step down. Of course, that turned out not to be the case. But such a reaction illustrated a fact: whatever Chan says or does, no one will believe him again. People even suspected the reliability of a simple traffic accident.
The warning of a "Tacitus trap" facing the government - sounded by Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing - seems to have come true. The "Tacitus trap" warns leaders in power that when the public resents a government, whatever it does or says will be perceived to be bad or unreliable.
The doubts over Chan's traffic accident also show most people just want him to step down as soon as possible; they don't care what excuses he uses.
That Chan came to be public enemy No1 is his own fault. It's mostly because of his dishonest conduct - he doesn't practise what he preaches. He went all out for personal gain. Then he pretended to be all righteous and someone who was committed to serving the community.
When he was grilled over details of his conflict-of-interest row involving the ownership of farmland in the New Territories, he was reluctant to give out full details. His behaviour did nothing to assuage people's doubts; indeed it has had the opposite effect.