Carrie Lam’s senior aide Ronny Tong says Hong Kong leader is best person to tackle city’s social problems
- Remarks come after leaked audio incident and hours before news emerges that chief executive will withdraw extradition bill
- But he warns against using emergency powers to quell Hong Kong protests
A top aide of Hong Kong’s embattled leader has said there was no better candidate to tackle the city’s deep-rooted social problems, a day after Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor made clear she had never offered to resign over the escalating political crisis.
The developments came amid a new low in Lam’s popularity over her handling of protests that have rocked the city for almost three months.
What was Carrie Lam thinking when she made her resignation remarks?
“She should stay on to handle [the current crisis]. Going forward, the government needs to tackle deep-rooted problems, in particular housing,” Tong said on an RTHK radio programme on Wednesday.
“In the last two years, Lam has some achievements in this regards. She also has the passion to carry on and do a better job.”
Tong added he was unconvinced a new administration headed by another leader could do a better job quickly.
The recording that was leaked was from a meeting with the Vision 2047 Foundation, Tong said.
Hong Kong has been gripped by mass protests which have regularly turned violent and spread chaos across the city since June.
Anti-government demonstrations have run for 13 consecutive weekends in Hong Kong, and frequent clashes with police have led to more than 1,100 arrests.
Tong, a former chairman of the Bar Association, expressed concern over suggestions Lam might invoke sweeping emergency powers to allow her to “make any regulations whatsoever” that she might “consider desirable in the public interest”.
‘All laws’, including emergency powers, on the table for Hong Kong leader
He said a lot of people in the city misunderstood the emergency laws, adding the legislation allowed the government to handle an emergency and not to amend existing laws.
But Tong said if it was invoked, the international community’s confidence in the “one country, two systems” principle could be harmed. Under this principle, Hong Kong has a high degree of autonomy from Beijing.
He said an alternative was for Lam to make use of the Public Order Ordinance that allowed her to authorise the police commissioner to appoint anyone as “special constables”, so as to relieve the manpower pressures the force had been facing.
Asked if mainlanders could be appointed, Tong said it was theoretically allowed. But he said he believed that if this law was to be used, the government should appoint, for example, Hong Kong customs officers and the Civil Aid Service.
But Tong stressed that he did not see the need for Lam to make use of this power.
On whether arrested protesters should be granted amnesty as stated in one of their demands, Tong said they should go through the legal system first before consideration by Lam was given on reducing their terms of punishment or offering complete amnesty.
