Just Saying | Hong Kong is becoming a basket case because our leaders have the power but no guts to end anarchy

Yonden Lhatoo says the government can start using emergency powers at its disposal to at least tackle lawlessness on the streets, if not end mass protests, but it lacks the stomach and is terrified of international criticism

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Anti-government protesters set objects on fire on a street in Tuen Mun on September 21. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 6:14pm, 28 Sep 2019Updated: 10:32pm, 28 Sep 2019

It’s open season on Hong Kong’s government, with everyone and their mum bashing our top officials these days as they flounder about and clutch at straws, drowning under a tsunami of protest chaos and anarchy.

And it’s not hard to understand why there is so much public derision and disrespect for this broken and beleaguered administration when you look, for example, at what happened after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s first town hall-style dialogue with citizens on Thursday night.

She was trapped inside the venue for four hours after the show with some of her principal officials because of a belligerent crowd assembled outside, determined to block her from leaving, and it was 1.30am by the time she was able to beat a sad retreat through a back door when everyone had finally left.

A riot police officer falls to the ground while trying to catch an anti-government protester in Sha Tin. Photo: Sam Tsang

Officials put a noble spin on the embarrassing episode, saying Lam had been prepared for the siege and willingly sat it out to avoid ugly scenes of riot police having to disperse protesters right after her first attempt to reconnect with a hostile public.

But, sorry to say, it was more a reflection of how her government is always on the back foot, perpetually unprepared, a comatose patient running a sick city.