Insight | On political ability

Paulo Barbosa

The 2015 Policy Address is done. Chief Executive Chui Sai On and all five secretaries went to the Legislative Assembly (AL) to present the strategy they aim to implement during the upcoming months. The last to present their plan to the lawmakers was Raimundo do Rosário (see our report about the second day of his policy address on page 5), who was a pleasant surprise.
Chui Sai On was true to form, as expected. He enumerated social welfare measures directed at the elderly population and regional cooperation policies that seemingly originate outside Macau. There was no long-term plan to develop the region. The idea that got more media attention in the local non-Chinese press was the announcement of a study on the creation of a municipal body “with no political power” until 2017. This could indicate (or not) more democratization in the policy making process. But even that idea was not clearly explained. As I wrote previously, the CE was vague and resorted to platitudes about economic diversification. There was no real debate at the AL between him and the lawmakers, since he seemed to be delivering canned responses to pre-made questions. Chui doesn’t like to leave anything to chance or to improvise during his speeches. He does that to such an extent that even a debate becomes the transcript of a written speech.
Regarding the secretaries’ performance at the AL, Alexis Tam was perhaps the one that showed the most political ability.  The Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture demonstrated that his time as government spokesperson has given him a finger on the pulse of the local media and knowledge about what can capture the public’s attention. He made a strong announcement — the revamp of the Hotel Estoril into an arts center targeted at local youth — and stressed the importance of national education, demonstrating that he abides by Beijing’s agenda. Alexis Tam also announced some other concrete measures (like the replacement of the hospital director), and even managed to say what the French call a ‘boutade,’ or a sound byte, that obviously caught media attention and some took seriously. He said that he would resign from office if his reforms fail.
The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong, also performed well at his first policy address presentation. His strong idea is that the gaming industry needs a “check-up” and the government will develop an interim review of the performances of gaming concessionaires this year. The message is that gaming operators need to perform well in non-gaming elements, job creation and career opportunities afforded to locals; as well as social responsibility programs.
The Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário, had a somewhat clumsy start. When he took office he said that he needed to study the several dossiers before presenting any concrete measure, revealing honesty but also lack of political intuition (a politician can’t be in office and assume total ignorance or absence of ideas over the matters he supervises). But Raimundo do Rosário surprised me, showing a practical, engineer’s frame of mind. He said that he would solve concrete problems and wouldn’t let public work projects stall. Candidly, he admitted to the complete mess of his secretariat’s ongoing works in fields like transportation and major public projects, saying that he couldn’t “justify the unjustifiable” (a great sound bite).
One last note about the debates at the AL: The rules should be amended in order to make them more organized, especially during the policy address. Since the secretaries oversee a wide array of issues, the debates are illogical, almost chaotic. Lawmakers are allowed to talk too much (half an hour) and mostly spend their time guessing everything and nothing.  And the secretaries choose what they want to reply to and ignore some questions.
The debate would be more organized and relevant if it became more sectorial. For example, it would be preferable to have two hours allocated for health issues than to mix health with culture, social welfare and sports over one afternoon.