Eric Sautedé
Most things in life are about perspective. Even a supposedly clear-cut situation can be seen with very different eyes.
Back in 2008, then American senator Barack Obama remarked in Philadelphia that he had been deemed by commentators as “either ‘too black’ or ‘not black enough’”.
In my home country, France, the recent absolute majority won in the legislature by Emmanuel Macron’s former political movement — after being elected President he had to resign from “On the Move!” — was construed as either “massive” (with 308 seats out of 577, it is one of the biggest since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, whereas the movement was created only in April 2016) or “disappointing” (given the abstention rate of 57.4 percent the highest ever, and the somewhat under-performance when considering pre-ballot predictions).
Clearly, the glass can be seen as either half-full or half-empty, and this is usually determined by initial expectations and never-ending commentaries.
The same could be said of the just announced new leadership in Hong Kong.
On Wednesday, Carrie Lam, the soon-to-be sworn-in Chief executive, unravelled 21 members of her cabinet that will start working after July 1. Doubters regarding her promise to herald a “new style of governance” have stressed the elements of continuity: the top three principal officials will stay the same — that is Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung, Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen and Financial Secretary Paul Chan — and most of the positions will be filled by promoting under-secretaries, senior civil servants or deputy-commissioners, while another three will remain in their positions — Lau Kong-wah as Home Affairs chief, Wong Kam-sing as environmental chief and Nicholas Yang as innovation chief. Critics are thus talking about musical chairs at best, and rumours are rife: did the Liaison Office veto some names or did some people plainly and simply refuse?
Yet, the very fact that one — only one, killjoys would say — of these senior officials has been drawn from the pan-democratic camp is truly ground-breaking, although it was somewhat to be expected. By recruiting Democratic Party co-founder and former lawmaker Law Chi-kwong as the new secretary for labour and welfare, Mrs Lam is indeed on the side of innovation; something that would never have crossed the mind of CY Leung. Would it have, it most probably would never have been accepted by the pan-Dems, as “689” (one of Mr Leung’s most amiable nicknames) had come to embody everything that was wrong in Hong Kong’s political past, present and future. Donald Tsang, the Chief Executive from 2005 to 2012, might have, and actually was advised to do so, but either lacked the courage or the proper credentials to follow suit; his long years of service in the British colonial administration led him to be more Catholic than the Pope!
Mrs Lam must find ways of mending the severely damaged relations between state and society in Hong Kong, and recruiting Mr Law is but a first step. The same could be said of the nomination on Thursday of Ronny Tong, a former pro-democracy lawmaker from the Civic Party and a co-founder of the Article 23 Concern Group, to the Executive Council, the consultative body that meets every Tuesday to “[assist] the Chief Executive in policy-making”. Pessimist observers will argue that Mr Tong has become too “moderate”, just like his think-tank “Path of Democracy”, but if not him, who else?
Now, could we ever imagine the same for Macao? Of course not, as this is a process in which pressure is coming from above AND below. Far from validating the common-sense aphorism that “high expectations lead to great disappointments,” Macao is actually creating a proverb of its own: “no expectations at all prompt absolute cynicism”! In the end, this can only be conducive to a rude awakening, unless of course legislative elections become meaningful…
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