After having been hit by a series of political bombs, it is good that Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has finally promised to do a bit of reflecting . The Year of the Dog hasn’t been a good one for the government. The convenor of the Executive Council, Bernard Chan, wondered whether Hong Kong is reaching a tipping point in public anger in his recent column . “Less than two years into the current administration, the Hong Kong government is running up against what looks a bit like populist opposition on multiple fronts,” he wrote. But instead of wondering, as Chan did, whether this city has “the seeds that grew into populism in the West: losers of globalisation, immigration, a wealth gap and resentment against the elite”, the better question to reflect on is how has the government nurtured these “seeds”. Granted, they may not have been sown by the current administration, but Lam has played critical roles in every administration since the handover. That is why her attempts to deflect blame for this month’s explosive political disaster over raising the age limit for elderly beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) scheme hasn’t worked. As a former director of the Social Welfare Department credited with tightening the CSSA scheme and as the last administration’s chief secretary – heading the Poverty Commission when the proposal to raise the age threshold for elderly CSSA payments to 65 was mooted – Lam’s attempts to lay the policy at the last administration’s door are unconvincing. Hongkongers need not embrace populism for their “resentment against the elite” to grow. The Year of the Dog had provided us with plenty of scandals and reasons to be critical of elitists and their “we know best” arrogance. The mother of all Year of the Dog scandals – the MTR Corporation’s epic fall from grace – will continue into the Year of the Pig. Shoddy work, mismanagement, and arrogance has taken this behemoth down, and the nightmare is nowhere near over yet . Just last week, it was revealed that those dogs notorious for eating up homework had found their way to 40 per cent of documents certifying work on two approach tunnels and some sidetracks on the Sha-Tin Central rail link, making it impossible for safety to be guaranteed. Impatient Hongkongers? Blame the MTR Just as the railway’ giant’s public confidence crisis didn’t happen overnight, neither has the government’s. Clearly, the administration learned nothing from the MTR’s hard lessons, choosing to speed ahead with its plans, fuelled by its overconfidence. It crashed and burned when it tried to ram its proposed changes to cross-harbour tunnel tolls through the Legislative Council. The government’s “our way or the highway” sales pitch was anything but sensible. The public isn’t necessarily being populist. Pro-establishment lawmakers aren’t turning populist, either. They are reacting to being pushed around by elitist wannabes who think that they know best, but don’t. Not working with legislators and people on the ground in crafting policies to solve problems is simply cutting corners, because the day the government can ram these policies through the legislature without consultation is the day that pigs fly. And when pigs do fly, we will have affordable housing that comes in liveable sizes , no one, especially the elderly, would need government assistance, the city’s health care system would not be crippled every time flu season comes around and there would be no traffic congestion as we make our way to family reunion dinners on the eve of Lunar New Year. But, until that day comes, the chief executive will need to keep her government’s feet on the ground. She was right when she said there are many challenges that lie ahead, at last week’s Legislative Council question-and-answer session. Good governance can only be achieved by winning the public’s confidence, not only in her ability, but also in her integrity, and her capacity to bring people together, to collaborate and work together for the common good. Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA