My Take | Rural strongman Lau Wong-fat on way out as Heung Yee Kuk’s power fades
The intention of some Kuk leaders to form a political party is to reassert its influence, but it’s unlikely they will find another chief as effective
Rural strongman Lau Wong-fat is retiring from public life in stages due to ill health. Hong Kong as a whole will benefit to see the last of him along with a diminished Heung Yee Kuk.
A consummate politician and businessman, he has cleverly exploited the post-handover government’s reliance on the Kuk’s political support to game the system for “villagers”, many of whom may not even live in rural areas, or even in Hong Kong.
This primarily has to do with the small house policy, an ill-conceived administrative measure dating back to the early 1970s under the colonial government.
The gender-discriminatory policy provides a plot of land to build a house for every male indigenous villager in the New Territories.
It was clearly intended to be a temporary measure to resolve the housing shortage during the colonial era. But Lau and the Kuk have successfully turned it into an open-ended commitment by the government and an ancient land right protected under the Basic Law.
The legal basis of their argument is weak, but they have never been challenged in court. The government, counting on the Kuk as a reliable political ally, acquiesces to it at the expense of the rest of Hong Kong.