History may mark October 13, 2010 as the Waterloo of the current administration. That's the day Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen gave his penultimate policy address - his last effective pronouncement on policy before his farewell speech next year.
He made full use of his executive power, laying out six funds amounting to tens of billions of dollars to address various mounting problems. Even with so many cakes being dished out, the immediate reaction was only a lukewarm 42 per cent level of public support, which soon dropped to 32 per cent.
In the same session, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly for a motion scrapping a chief executive order to use part of a country park for a landfill. Fifty-five out of 59 lawmakers, from across the political spectrum, supported the motion. Faced with such a setback, the government quickly beat a retreat. This was the third major defeat suffered by the executive branch since the handover.
Some legal experts said the minor modification to the country park boundary was indeed within the chief executive's power. He could simply have signed it and had it published in the Government Gazette.
Instead, Tsang chose to put it to the Legislative Council as supplementary legislation, saying it could not be vetoed - leading to the fateful defeat.
This has left the hands of the already weak government, now into its early lame-duck stage, tied even tighter. It is now open for attack from all sides without any credible options for defence. The immediate consequence is that our lawmakers will further humiliate Tsang and tear his policy address to pieces.