Tsang, Eu and activists prepare for TV debate
Less than a week before Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen meets Civic Party leader Audrey Eu Yuet-mee in an unprecedented televised debate on constitutional reform, preparations have been heating up on both sides.
Members of the public, who are excluded from taking part in the first live showdown between a serving chief executive and an opposition leader, are also being mobilised by activists to lay siege to the debate venue on June 17, so that they can air their desire for universal suffrage.
Even though she is considered a better speaker and debater than Tsang, Eu, a top barrister, will undergo a series of rehearsals with party secretary general Kenneth Chan Ka-lok, who will be her sparring partner.
'But I just don't have the time to do much preparation - except perhaps before going to bed. When I am not sitting in Legco for meetings these days, I am down in the districts collecting people's views,' Eu said.
Many of the hundreds of questions the party has collected will be passed to an independent panel, which will select those to be asked during the debate. Some of the submissions received include advice on how Eu should crush her opponent.
Chan said they included demands for Tsang to resign and assume responsibility for failing to fight for universal suffrage, or tips on how to get Tsang hysterical so he would make a fool of himself.
Tsang, meanwhile, is studying how to better present his message, according to an official with knowledge of his preparations. In his blog last week, Tsang said he was too busy to engage in any special training, because he had a government to run.
The official said Tsang was familiarising himself with the rules of the debate, which will comprise opening and closing speeches for the debaters, plus question time for each.
Questions submitted by the public will be drawn from a pool by the moderator and read out.
The hour-long debate, which will be held from 6.35pm at government headquarters, is expected to become the first flashpoint for protesters before the vote on the government's reform proposal in the legislature on June 23.
The series of actions planned includes a protest outside the debate and a siege of the Legco building on June 23.
Wong Yuk-man, a core member of the League of Social Democrats, and Mabel Au Mei-po, a spokeswoman for the People's Movement Against Functional Constituencies, expect at least a few hundred participants to turn out.
'From the express-rail link protest to the June 4 candle-light vigil, we see the higher mobilising power of the post-80s generation. There will be even more participants in the coming wave of protests as the summer holidays approach,' Au said.
A call on Facebook for a Legco blockade 'from 8am till the police crack down' on June 23 has drawn a response from more than 120 people who say they will attend.
