In the clearest sign that Beijing wants Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa to serve a second term, President Jiang Zemin yesterday said he wished Mr Tung would be successfully re-elected and believed he would be.
The President's remark demonstrated once again that the central Government was comfortable about having elections in the SAR, provided it was sure who the winner would be.
Five years ago, Mr Jiang dropped similar hints about whom he wanted to be the chief executive by going out of his way to seek out Mr Tung in a group and shake hands with him.
But even though Mr Tung's re-election is a foregone conclusion, the show has to go on. For the majority of the population who do not have a vote and who have expressed views through opinion polls that they do not want him to run again, yesterday's function at the Convention and Exhibition Centre may have appeared farcical. But it had to be staged to demonstrate Mr Tung still has a measure of support and to give the electoral game a veneer of legitimacy.
Indeed, there was some truth in what was said by the seven people mobilised to speak in support of Mr Tung. Regardless of whom had been chief executive, said the speakers, nothing could have stopped the financial crisis that hit east Asia in 1997-98 from engulfing Hong Kong.
Mr Tung, an honest leader with the highest integrity, had done his best to steer the SAR through difficult times. He made decisive moves to ward off speculators in 1998 who wanted to crush the SAR's financial system. He was far-sighted enough to launch long-overdue reforms in education and to spearhead the SAR's economic integration with the mainland.
These recollections were all very well, except that there was no mention of his obvious blunders over housing policy - failing to modify his goal of building 85,000 flats a year quickly enough when economic conditions changed - or his dogged determination to implement mother-tongue education according to a plan that was laid down by the colonial administration but was unpopular with the public.