The list “Nova Esperança” (“New Hope”), headed by lawmaker and candidate José Pereira Coutinho, was delivered yesterday together with the political program to the Electoral Affairs Commission for the Legislative Assembly Election (CAEAL).
After delivery of the documents, Pereira Coutinho expressed concerns over the number of voters that the list is expected to attract, noting “we have many of our association [Macau Civil Servants Association] members that are supporting and even running on other lists.” He added that this fact would influence the votes of members’ friends and family.
In order to tackle those “likely vote losses” the list proposes to attract more voters from the younger generation, addressing problems that are closely related to their livelihoods as well as dedicating special attention to the “legitimate interests of the Portuguese community stated by Article 42 of the [Macau] Basic Law,” Coutinho said. He then reiterated that there is “discrimination” that prevents people from this community from accessing positions within the civil service. He said the issue was particularly serious for the youth generation.
“Nowadays, to enter the civil service, if you have a Portuguese name you cannot enter [in the public sector]. There is discrimination. That’s why we are asking for the establishment of a body such as Hong Kong’s ombudsman [to mediate these cases]. [In Macau] we just ‘kick the ball’ to the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC). This is an irresponsible attitude,” he noted. He further observed that even within the Chinese community, there is also discrimination “regarding the language or the ‘accent’ of pronunciation,” he said.
According to Coutinho, gaming concessionaires would “rather hire qualified people from abroad than hire locals who ‘can’t handle the situation’”. He also remarked on the lack of quality in local education that contributes to a “lack of competitiveness of our youngsters” and ultimately of the region.
The fact that gaming concessionaires dominate a bigger share of the private market, and that many local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are depending on them to survive was also noted by Coutinho. He said that “if the gaming concessions ‘sneeze’, all the others are already on ‘intravenous life support’”, and suggested the idea that it is necessary to ease the burden on administrative bureaucracies. Coutinho cited the example of coffee shops and food and beverage establishments, where “a simple license from the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) takes four to six months to grant,” a period in which the young people often interested in creating such businesses need to “pay unaffordable rents.”
Such problems were never concerns of the government, in the candidate’s opinion, who added that they were increasingly aggravated by policies regarding non-resident labor.
“Who in Macau will be a waiter/waitress? Who in Macau will work in an industrial building?” Coutinho asked rhetorically. Of a system he considers unfair, he stated “there are companies that have 100 percent of non-resident work force without the need to respect [quotas],” contributing once more to “injustices in fair [market] competition.”
