Rear Window | Another walk in the park

Severo Portela

The Chief Executive’s regular visit to the Legislative Assembly, for a three-hour long question and answer session, appears to have been a walk in the park… once again. The format of the session changed, when, a long time ago, the house rules were adapted to conform to an Executive-led system. With this change, open communication was traded in for a carefully crafted performance on the topic of government policy. The sessions have deadened into predictable recitals, a turn of events that we have come to expect from the powers-that-be at the House by Nam Van Lake.
To appreciate the disenchantment and frustration triggered by apparently scripted redundant questions and passes to the lawmakers, we have to underline Song Pek Kei’s candid remark: “the central issues of governance… remain to be solved.” Song Pek Kei’s evaluation is arguably an Emperor’s New Clothes observation; however, she is far from the New Macau or New Hope style criticism concerning democratic development. Song’s comment is in relation to housing, health, transportation and food quality; topics that are quickly dismissed in the Legislative Assembly’s plenary session so that they cannot interrupt the report being delivered on the CE’s recent performance.
More to the point, raising these everyday topics would distract from the true purpose of the session – to show why Chui Sai On is correct and above reproach when he submits his governance to MSAR lawmakers. The tone of  the line of questioning is friendly, and – as there is no room for reply, much less dialogue – the Chief Executive can conveniently address the issues of his choice for as long as he likes, loudly and clearly. This is politics.
Several legislators attempted to focus the CE’s attention on the recently approved Land Law. Gabriel Tong is asking the house to introduce an explanatory note regarding land repossession, and 88 lawyers joined him,  presenting an unusually united  front.
Legislator Zheng Anting cunningly used the terminology of the Land Law to challenge Chui Sai On, asking, “what is non-imputable to the concessionaires that fail to complete a project and face the retaking of their idle plot?” In other words, what blame can be attributed to the landowners facing repossession of their land?
It may have been an angle worth exploring, and we underline the past tense, because the wording of the Land Bill, passed in 2014, has made any protest from the concessionaires irrelevant. In answering Zheng Anting, the CE only needed to quote the law. Chui Sai On did generously give us a bonus answer to an obviously connected question – what a repossessed concessionaire is to do. The concessionaire can request an extension to the contract. We have to compliment this very non-litigious answer… while walking in the park. This is vintage Chu Sai On.
His mantra across every topic is “according to the law”… but in regards to the controversial Jinan donation, the CE  carefully qualified his mantra, saying, “all was done according to procedures.”
One additional note dedicated to the  Hotel Estoril: New Macau is once again about to petition the Urban Planning Committee to reconsider or renew the public debate on the historical and architectural value of the hotel. The fate of the Estoril is uncertain, it could be demolished or the façade could be protected through conservation. However, regardless of the outcome, when any part of the Estoril falls, it will take public opinion with it as a casualty.
Patton Oswalt wryly remarked and was quoted by Time Magazine, talking about a man who threw butter out of a window because he wanted to see butter fly. We can only hope that his coded prediction about the future of the Estoril will not happen.