Kapok | Fair and… competitive?

Eric Sautedé

On December 30, the official reports on the latest elections of both the Legislative Assembly (AL) and the Chief Executive (CE) were made public. At long last – as this took a whopping 16 months since the CE selection and no less than 27 months for the AL elections! For the latter, the 39-page report (in Chinese) was penned by the Commission in February 2014 and yet only released publicly more than half-way through the legislature’s mandate: how can this be justified, if not for democratic principles, at least for the sake of transparency?
The only time democracy 民主 is mentioned in the Macao Basic Law – no disconcerting mention of universal suffrage in our own BL – it is openly associated with “openness”. It furthermore appears, quite ironically, in the Annex dedicated to the selection process of the CE, which reads that the members (300 initially and now 400) of the Election Committee that designates the CE should be chosen according to an electoral law designed “in accordance with the principles of democracy and openness.”
Initially, the reports did not attract much attention. Maybe because of the timing: who wants to write (beyond a quasi repeat of the content) or even read about elections on December 31st? Maybe because of the lack of urgency after so many months on the backburner. Maybe because of the content: only six meager “suggestions” for each, with the disproportionate ambition – in the case of the AL – to “improve competitiveness of indirect elections and fairness” in the overall electoral process.
Since then, the debate has flared slightly. On January 4th, Jason Chao, from Macao Conscience and the New Macao Association, denounced the reports as “biased, misleading and unfair.” In the case of the AL review, it was decried for disproportionally targeting some cases while downplaying others that were later actually convicted of “vote buying”. Furthermore, Jason Chao indicated that the early promotion of some of the outgoing CE’s key political proposals – the construction of 28,000 public housing units in particular – could be construed as misuse of public resources. This first salvo was accurately and extensively covered in the Chinese press, including All About Macau and Cheng Pou, with the notable exception of Macao Daily News.
Actually, Macao Daily News presented an excellent idea on January 12th to interview some noteworthy unsuccessful candidates of 2013. Among them Agnès Lam of Civil Watch (5,225 votes), Kuan Vai Lam of Caring for Macao (5,323 votes), Paul Pun of the Betterment of our Community (2,306 votes) and Hong Weng Kuan of the Promotion of the Citizens’ Rights (only 848 votes… significant, really?) – but of course no Liberals (3,227 votes) headed by… Jason Chao. Although Agnès Lam explored in more detail certain aspects of the reports –
casting doubts on the efficiency of the proposals to tackle some aspects of corruption or emphasizing the problematic absence of a law for political parties – the overall message conveyed by Macao Daily News was one of consensus (how surprising!): the campaign period should not be restricted to 15 days, rather be extended, for the informal part, to the time when lists of candidates are being recognized (at the very least) and possibly up to six months before election day.
I have no doubt that an extended and reconfigured campaign period would help: the debate of ideas requires time and opportunity for reason to have a chance. Breaking away from rather outdated traditional modes of mobilization based on narrow-interest associations – an open door for corruption and populist excesses – supposes it as a precondition. A well-­harnessed modernity demands it. A more focused Electoral Commission commands it. But then, what about the other proposals? Is providing the contact details of the members of the CE Electoral Committee enough to encourage competition? At least for the AL, we will have a public consultation. Hopefully, the discussion has just begun.