Within the next few days Tung Chee-hwa is likely to finally get his way, with the passage of the bill abolishing the municipal councils.
There is a myth that the Provisional Urban and Regional councils are being scrapped because they made such a mess of the chicken flu crisis last year.
It is a myth that may be much repeated in coming days, not least because it puts in a better light Mr Tung's stubborn determination to destroy this largely elected part of Hong Kong's political structure.
After all, hardly anyone seriously attempts to deny that the municipal councils badly mishandled this outbreak. Nor that food safety and environmental hygiene will be in more capable hands after abolition, when responsibility for these passes to a new bureau headed by former ICAC commissioner Lily Yam Kwan Pui-ying.
But the truth is that, rather than being the real reason for scrapping these bodies, their bungling of the bird flu crisis simply provided a convenient excuse for a course of action the administration had decided on much earlier, and that it was Mr Tung who personally decreed they should be scrapped, defying initially strong opposition from top aides.
While the problem-prone councils have long been widely regarded as something of a laughing stock, there was certainly no public clamour for their abolition. Quite the reverse. Early opinion polls showed big majorities in favour of retaining elected representation at the municipal level.
Nonetheless, by at least mid-1997, and possibly before the handover, Mr Tung already had his mind set on abolition. A charitable explanation is that he was genuinely appalled by the scandals and wastefulness surrounding the municipal councils, whose members seem particularly adept at taking overseas junkets at the taxpayers' expense.