My Take | New powerful convenor post tailor-made for CY
- The job has great powers while the chief executive gets all the headaches and blame
Would you rather be the king or kingmaker? When the nominal king is little more than an administrator and the kingmaker gets so many awesome new powers, I think the choice is a no-brainer.
That is shaping up to be the case between the chief executive and the chief convenor, a supreme position newly created under Beijing’s imposed electoral overhaul for Hong Kong. The one gets all the headaches, the other has all the power.
The convenor will preside over the newly expanded Election Committee – from 1,200 members to 1,500 – for the chief executive. Not only does the committee get to screen all potential candidates to run in future Legislative Council elections, it also gets to send 40 of its own to Legco.
To be sure, such screening and voting are to be done collectively, but the convenor can have significant influence in the directions and choices of the committee.
Indeed, he or she pretty much will have unfettered powers especially in deadlocks, unsolved issues or emergencies, whatever they turn out to be.
In the past, in such situations, people have had to turn to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee for guidance or decision.
Only someone at the level of a state leader can serve as the convenor. At present, that means either former chief executives Tung Chee-hwa, aged 83, or Leung Chun-ying, 66
Now, the convenor can work effectively as the gatekeeper.