MSAR 15th ANNIVERSARY | Political system favors sole candidates, says Stanley Au

Stanley Au

The only candidate running for the Chief Executive elections who has ever been defeated believes that the city’s political system is designed to favor sole candidates. Commenting on the fact that Chui Sai On was re-elected unopposed, Stanley Au remarked that “I would be surprised if there had been another candidate”.
The first and only election contest took place in 1999, months before Macau’s handover to mainland China. At the time Macau’s electoral race was run between bankers Stanley Au and Edmund Ho. Mr Ho was able to comfortably win the election, as Mr Au was only able to garner 34 votes from an Electoral Committee comprised of 200 members.
The 73-year-old entrepreneur now recognizes that only candidates who are sure of a victory end up running for the Chief Executive elections. “People saw the outcome of the first election, so they don’t dare face the impossibility [of winning],” he suggested, adding that he believed until the last minute that he could win the 1999 election.
Fifteen years later, he acknowledged that he might have committed a “miscalculation” regarding Beijing’s support. “I thought Beijing would choose competency over [personal or political] relations,” he said. Edmund Ho had a closer relationship with Beijing thanks to his late father Ho Yin, who was a Chinese community leader between the late 1940s and his death in the early 1980s. He also played a crucial role in liaising between the Portuguese authorities in Macau and the government in Beijing prior to diplomatic relations being established.
“I ran because I thought I could contribute to Macau’s welfare,” Mr Au recalled, adding that he was committed to “maintaining stability but also looking to implement change”. He believes, however, that his campaign strategies were repressed.
Stanley Au asserted that the Macau people wish they could have more choices, and “they do not like that certain things are simply handed to them”.
“Young people and citizens who have higher qualifications are looking for freedom and democracy,” he said, adding that this became clearer as education standards improved in Macau.
“I believe that every human being would like to achieve freedom and democracy. But of course given the circumstances there’s a consensus about the motherland liking this or not, and [fears] of bothering China’s political system,” he said.
Mr Au recalled that Macau citizens do not voice their opinions and demands for a greater democracy as openly as Hong Kong residents do.
“Macau is in a different political situation. People are less daring and are not as longsighted as in Hong Kong. They don’t want to pay the price, which could mean that they would lose opportunities or even be jailed. You can see what happened with the Hong Kong students and that was just a demonstration,” he recalled.
Mr Au stressed that Macau has fallen under greater political pressure against democratic movements, since the city “does not have many independent newspapers and relies more on China”.
“We are well-behaved because of political pressure. We need to rely on the casinos, and people rely more on the government and on vested interests than the neighboring SAR,” he reiterated.
Nevertheless, he recognized that there are more and more residents voicing their concerns, particularly last May when Macau saw two of its biggest demonstrations since the handover. The people of Macau were protesting against a bill which would grant top officials generous retirement packages. The legislation was later withdrawn from the Legislative Assembly due to an order issued by Macau’s leader Chui Sai On.
Mr Au thinks Macau’s voices will take longer to be raised as the economic power still influences public institutions like the Legislative Assembly. “More than half of the [AL] plenary represents certain interests, so Macau is closely politically controlled,” he said. Mr Au served as an appointed lawmaker during Edmund Ho’s first term.
The banker said that Macau is due to witness great change before 1949. From his point of view, it is only natural that the territory follows in the footsteps of Hong Kong. “If Hong Kong is to have universal suffrage, I think people in Macau will fight for it too, if they so wish.” MDT/Lusa