Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam pinpoints political impasse as main obstacle to tackling livelihood issues, vows to address this in coming policy speech
- New stance deviates from her staple approach of focusing on practical issues, with no direct mention in previous speech on civil unrest at height of protests last year
- Chief executive says shortcomings in city’s education system represented a political issue rather than a question of resources
Hong Kong’s leader has singled out the city’s political impasse as the main obstacle to solving livelihood issues, including housing and education, as she vowed to deal with the problem in her coming policy address.
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also said the city’s shortcomings in its education system represented a political issue rather than a question of resources, lamenting that many students had been arrested over unlawful acts in the past year.
The chief executive’s comments, which appeared to deviate from her staple focus on practical livelihood issues, came in an interview with Hong Kong Open TV broadcast on Thursday night.
In her third and most-recent policy address, delivered four months after the anti-government protests were sparked last June by the now-withdrawn extradition bill, Lam unveiled a blueprint boasting more than 220 initiatives, but none tackled head-on the political storm battering the city.
If the political problems remain unsolved, it would be very difficult for the government to make any moves … So, the coming policy address is inseparable from ‘talking about politics’
Housing, welfare and economic issues dominated her speech last October, but Lam conspicuously omitted any reference to protesters’ demands for universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into police’s alleged abuse of power.