New Macau | Chiang ousted by election list controversy

Sulu Sou is expected to head the New Macau list

It has emerged that a New Macau Association (ANM) board meeting, held to decide the order of candidates to run on the group’s election ticket, was responsible for the departure of former ANM president Scott Chiang earlier this week.

The information, provided to the Times by several anonymous sources, indicated that some members of the association had subverted the results of a survey and demoted Chiang from the second place on the ticket to the third. The sources said that this made Chiang’s role as the association head untenable.

Some months ago, a survey was circulated to New Macau members to determine the order that candidates should be listed on the ANM ticket.

The results suggested that current vice president Sulu Sou should head the list, followed by Chiang and then Paul Chan, a former legislator who served a term in office after the 2009 Legislative Assembly (AL) election.

However, the survey did not ask respondents to indicate an order of preference for the candidates, leading to some controversy over how the New Macau board should interpret the results.

According to the information provided to the Times, the board considered two motions: To either respect the results of the internal survey or swap the positions of Chiang and Chan, so that the former president would now be placed third on the list.

The board settled on the second motion, swapping the positions of the second- and third-listed candidates.

The leading political associations in Macau can expect to win a maximum of two seats in the AL election. In 2013, only Chan Meng Kam’s United Citizens Association of Macau secured a third seat in the legislature.

As such, demoting Scott Chiang to third place on the list would effectively disqualify him from winning a seat, unless the party obtained a decisive victory.

Paul Chan is one of the ANM “old guard”, alongside current lawmakers Au Kam San and Ng Kuok Cheong, who over the past two years have distanced themselves from the organization. The political maneuvering of the two legislators is reflective of a widening generational gap within New Macau that some observers believe is crippling the group.

It remains unclear whether the decision to demote Chiang to third on the list was the result of broad popular support for a more experienced candidate in Paul Chan, or a coup d’état orchestrated by senior members at the association.

Chiang was re-elected as president of New Macau in July last year, receiving a total of nine votes from the 11 participating board members, while his former colleagues Jason Chao and Sulu Sou were chosen to serve as vice presidents with 10 and 11 votes respectively.

The Times attempted to contact representatives of New Macau Association for comment but did not receive a reply by press time. Sulu Sou, who is thought by some to be preparing to succeed Chiang, was also not reachable yesterday.

Meanwhile, Scott Chiang refused to comment on the matter, stating only that he could neither confirm nor deny the course of events.