It is almost certain that consensus-builder Edmund Ho Hau-wah will become Macau's first post-handover chief executive. Although Mr Ho, Macau-born and about to celebrate his 44th birthday next Saturday, is still an adolescent in terms of China's traditional gerontocracy, he has already notched up 15 years as a politician.
Mr Ho is a son of Macau's legendary Chinese community leader Ho Yin, who dominated local politics for more than three decades until his death in December 1983.
Ho the elder founded a bureau de change in Macau in 1940, which soon after its establishment functioned as a de facto bank. However, the Macau government granted the company, Tai Fung (or Great Abundance), a full banking licence only in 1971.
The younger Mr Ho, who holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Toronto's York University, became Tai Fung's executive director and general manager soon after his father's death.
The bank was in dire straits in the early 1980s and in 1984 was successfully restructured with the help of the Bank of China, which now holds a major stake in its equity. Tai Fung is now Macau's second largest bank, after the Bank of China Macau branch. It had a ledger balance total of nearly 40 billion patacas (HK$40 billion) at the end of last year.
Mr Ho has made an inexorable ascent to political power since taking over his family's bank and other businesses and his late father's political legacy in 1984, at the age of just 29. He became a legislator in 1988.
Mr Ho is now vice-president of the 23-member Macau Legislative Assembly, being one of its indirectly elected deputies representing the business constituency. He is also a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, vice-president of the Preparatory Committee of the Macau Special Administrative Region, chairman of the Macau Association of Banks, vice-president of the Macau Chinese Chamber of Commerce and vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. He is also a board member of Macau's television and radio station (TDM) and the Macau International Airport Company, and heads the Macau Olympic Committee and a host of other sports, community and welfare associations.