Opinion | Hong Kong's wily politicos relish stage set by political reform stalemate
Albert Cheng is wary of the recent push for a public opinion poll aimed at getting the democrats to rethink their threat of a veto in the legislature
Zhang Dejiang , who heads the Central Coordination Group for Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, has called it an "overriding task" to secure a two-thirds majority in the Legislative Council for the proposed restricted reform for the chief executive election in 2017.
He was speaking at a recent meeting with Hong Kong delegates to the national legislative meetings in Beijing. Zhang is also chairman of the National People's Congress, which makes him the third ranking leader in the hierarchy of the Chinese Communist Party. When he made such a clear demand, many were eager to spring into action without blinking twice.
Soon after his speech, an "authoritative source close to the central government" told Hong Kong reporters that pocketing the political package on offer was the only way to block Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying from being re-elected. Should Leung get a second term, the anonymous source threatened, he would introduce local laws for national security under Article 23 of the Basic Law.
This borders on the absurd. Instead of offering any substantial concessions to sweeten the deal, the only carrot is for us to see the back of Leung in 2017.
Ironically, this has become the most persuasive argument so far as to why we should swallow the restrictions on our political reform.
I have heard that others in the pro-establishment camp are keen to act, too. They are poised to commission an international pollster for a large-scale opinion survey. In response to Zhang's remarks, all 27 democratic legislators affirmed their determination to veto any electoral changes based on the framework imposed by the NPC on August 31. The poll in the pipeline is meant to create a pretext for at least five of them to make an easy U-turn.
