Retired top adviser urges greater role for political parties

A retired top adviser to the Chief Executive has urged Tung Chee-hwa to seek Beijing's blessing for political parties to have a greater role to help break the impasse in the present political system.

Speaking in an interview with the South China Morning Post about his memoirs, Dr Chung Sze-yuen said party politics was an inevitable and integral part of an effective democratic system.

Without the support from political parties in the elected legislature, he warned a ministerial system would be 'neither this nor that', and even counter-productive.

Recalling his attempts to lobby for the grooming of political parties in the 1980s and propose a ministerial system during the transition, the former convenor of the Executive Council lamented his advice had been ignored.

'He [Mr Tung] only came out in 1996, he did not have much experience in politics. Nor has he time to read books. After he came to office he had to change a lot of policies set by Chris Patten. It took time for officials to adjust to the changes.'

He said China had to take the blame for failing to lay down the blueprint for the transition of a colonial system to a democracy system in the Basic Law.

'Mr Tung should not be blamed for not doing something about it in the early years. But in the next five years, he should think of ways to better deal with the problem,' Dr Chung said.