Chui must modernise his approach to governing Macau
Sonny Lo says paternalistic attitude and the lumbering bureaucracy have to go
Although Fernando Chui Sai-on has been re-elected as chief executive in Macau with 380 out of the 396 votes cast by Election Committee members, his paternalistic government faces daunting challenges in the next five years.
First and foremost, his "new" government will have to tackle livelihood issues in a more forceful and effective way. While residents and tourists complain about the absence of satisfactory transport services, local casino employees and citizens have been grumbling about the difficulties in applying for public housing units.
Chui's campaign team put livelihood issues at the top of his agenda, but it remains to be seen how the government will address these issues.
All these problems reflect bureaucratic problems in Macau. Civil service reforms need to focus not just on salary increases and improvements in fringe benefits, they will also have to target better departmental leadership, coordination and crisis management.
Macau's bureaucrats have been characterised by complacency, an inability to anticipate crises, and clumsiness in responding to public and media criticism. Worse, the apparently hardline treatment of a minority of political dissidents who orchestrated the so-called referendum movement has raised concern.
Although Macau remains characterised by paternalistic rule, its disciplinary forces are expected to be more tolerant of dissent, and more skilful in dealing with those of the post-90s generation who believe that Macau should have a more democratic political system.
All bureaucrats should ideally undergo training to develop a more open-minded attitude towards dissenting views.
Thus, to maintain political stability, the new government should listen to public opinion and consider bold reforms. Even though the Macau Basic Law, unlike the Hong Kong Basic Law, does not provide for election of the chief executive by universal suffrage, the new government should consider expanding the number of directly elected seats to the Legislative Assembly.
Alternatively, the existing district-level advisory committees should at least have some directly elected elements, so as to channel people's views into these institutions more effectively. In this way, the sight of 20,000 people protesting, as happened in May against the pension bill of retiring officials, could be avoided.
The new government will begin a rigorous review of the performance of all casino operators in 2015.
This is an opportunity to significantly strengthen government monitoring rather than stick to the largely laissez-faire policy.
The rights of local casino employees need to be protected while economic diversification must be developed by, say, requiring casino operators to contribute to the growth of other sectors.
Macau's heavy dependence on casino capitalism is creating huge prosperity but also a gigantic housing bubble.
Chui also needs to ensure development of more local talent in all sectors rather than relying on foreign and Hong Kong workers, especially in the casino industry where many locals lack the English-language competence to deal with a wide variety of foreign tourists.
Finally, Chui will have to groom a batch of more open-minded leaders to take the reins post 2019. Macau needs to move away from the tradition of its leaders hailing from the special administrative region's big families, as was the case with Chui and, before him, Edmund Ho.
Macau's paternalistic government will have to undergo a process of modernisation, self-criticism and renewal in order to cope with the challenges.
