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Chris Yeung

MORE THAN 10 months after his departure from the chief executive's office, Andrew Lo Cheung-on's role in politics remains the subject of media speculation.

Last Thursday, the Chinese-language Apple Daily  published a front-page story claiming Tung Chee-hwa was planning to arrange the return of Mr Lo next year.

A cartoon showed Mr Tung whistling outside the government headquarters, with Mr Lo, looking like a parrot, flying back.

(Mr Lo described himself as 'just like a parrot' when he met the disgraced University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor Cheng Yiu-chung in 2000. Mr Cheng was alleged to have interfered with opinion poll work conducted by pollster Robert Chung Ting-yiu. Mr Lo was later described by an independent panel to have been a 'poor and untruthful witness').

The Apple Daily  report said Mr Lo, who quit the government to help Mr Tung in his re-election campaign, still accompanied the Chief Executive when meeting people from various sectors.

In a terse statement issued on Friday, a spokesman for Mr Tung's office said the report was 'totally untrue'. It added that Mr Lo 'no longer serves the government and will not assume any post in the chief executive's office'.

It did not say whether Mr Lo, a long-time aide of Mr Tung, had continued to serve him in a private capacity.

The fact that the relationship between Mr Lo and Mr Tung is the subject of rumours and fantasy is intriguing in itself.

Rightly or wrongly, some people in the political sphere believe Mr Tung has regular discussions with Mr Lo, and that he has the full trust of the chief executive.

The fact that some people talk to Mr Lo in the hope that their views will go directly to Mr Tung has raised thought-provoking questions about Mr Tung's leadership.

Some political pundits have suggested that Mr Tung does not have a core team of government aides that he fully trusts.

Few people doubt the ability of the director of Mr Tung's office, Lam Woon-kwong, to ensure the seamless operation of the ministerial system, but there is a big question mark over how far he has gone into Mr Tung's inner world.

The personal influence of Mr Lo over Mr Tung, be it imagined or real, stands in stark contrast to the delicate relationship between Mr Tung and his officials.

There are plenty of cases that seem to reflect a considerable gap between Mr Tung and his staff. On housing policy, his off-the-cuff remarks last month about his intention to push up prices 'gently by a bit' were at variance with those uttered by housing minister Michael Suen Ming-yeung.

The chairman of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, Tsang Yok-sing, who sits on the Executive Council, sounded like a member of the opposition when he said the government tended to back down in the wake of strong opposition from society.

As soon as the leadership line-up was announced in June, some analysts identified a handful of team members who would have their eye on the post of chief executive after Mr Tung's second term.

They pointed out that the team members may have their own agenda and may not necessarily be fully supportive of Mr Tung.

In an interview in June, Vice-Premier Qian Qichen described Mr Tung as 'a loner' during his first term, implying that the chief executive would have his own team in the next five years.

Regardless of its accuracy, the report about Mr Lo's possible comeback led to a swift denial, which effectively clarified his role in the government machinery.

While the report might have reflected the agenda of the unidentified sources quoted in the story, it also highlights Mr Tung's peculiar political situation.

Chris Yeung is the Post's Editor-at-Large

cyeung@scmp.com



Tung's peculiar leadership style in the spotlight