Carrie Lam’s welfare cuts should have taught pro-establishment legislators a lesson: no more rubber stamping
- Alice Wu says the chief executive once congratulated herself for improving relations with Legco, but her changes to elderly welfare payments have instead united rival legislators against her
This political crisis was brought on by Lam herself. In reality, it is a shameless display of how the government takes the pro-establishment camp’s unwavering support for granted. It is also, more importantly, an important wake-up call for the entire camp.
They have been treated as cheap rubber stamps by the government before, and it would be wise for them to revisit lessons from history.
Did they, for example, learn anything from the political crisis brought on by the government’s attempt to ram through Article 23 national security legislation in 2003 – and the political fallout that resulted in a devastating electoral setback for the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong for its support for the administration?
One clear lesson would be the urgent need to take steps to redefine their relationship with a government that obviously takes advantage of them and does not care about the political price they have to pay for the support that is taken for granted.
The late chairman of the DAB, Ma Lik, said in 2003 that his party had a lot of serious soul-searching to do, and that it must retune itself with the voice of the people, realign itself with the will of the people and reposition itself in its relationship with the government.
Ma’s advice is as relevant today as it was back then. Instead of having to suffer at the polls first, pro-establishment parties must act now if they wishes to avoid any repeats of history.
With a pretty bleak economic outlook this year and an apathetic and out-of-touch government, the perfect political storm is brewing once again.
Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA