Carrie Lam a fighter to the end as she winds down regret-free chief executive tenure

The city’s fourth chief executive looks set to bring her time in office full circle by opening the Hong Kong Palace Museum next month

She leaves with many issues still unresolved, though, and she is frank about the obstacles her successor will have to overcome

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, whose five-year term will end on June 30, attends her final question and answer session in the Legislative Council at Tamar on June 9. Photo: Felix Wong

Alice Wu

Alice Wu fell down the rabbit hole of politics aged 12, when she ran her first election campaign.

Published: 4:45pm, 12 Jun 2022

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor had her last question and answer session in the Legislative Council last week. If not for the current 90-member-strong, patriots-only chamber, it would not have been a good occasion for Lam to say her piece.

Lam was given the opportunity to set the tone, and she took it. She declared she had delivered a report card that she did not regret and put down a “perfect full stop” for her 40-year public service career.

By a “perfect full stop”, Lam is most likely referring to the opening of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. She revealed that her government and Beijing’s culture ministry will host the opening ceremony as part of the festivities around the 25th anniversary of the handover.

It is symbolic since Lam came under intense political fire for having signed a deal with Beijing for the plans for the museum when she was chief secretary and served as the chair of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority. A month before Lam announced her run for the top post, she unveiled the museum plans that came about without any public consultation.

It wasn’t Lam’s intention, but it was her departing controversy – rather than a final gift – as chief secretary. To finally be able to open the museum before her departure as chief executive does seem like a perfect and poetic note on which to end.

But not all loose ends can be tied up neatly like the museum, and Lam was refreshingly frank about that in her last Q&A session. Among the many issues Lam will hand over to Chief Executive-elect John Lee Ka-chiu is the resumption of cross-border travel with the mainland.

At a rally organised by the Society for Community Organisation on May 15, protesters call on the government to reopen Hong Kong’s borders with the mainland. Photo: Xiaomei Chen