Rear Window | Au makes his move

Severo Portela

For the New Macau Association leadership and one of its veteran founders, it’s definitely an “auf wiedersehen!” The departure of Au Kam San came as no surprise, given the differences between the new generation of pro-active democrats and their veteran predecessors. However for a period of time both the young newcomers and the NMA old guard managed to strike a kind of deal or entente. The rules of engagement were light and easy, and a bit paternalistic to say the least… Ng Kuok Cheong and Au Kam San were the ones to draft the NMA political agenda as a copy and paste of their legislative performance. That is to say Ng and Au would provide the music… Jason and the youth team were to dance to the tune
To cut short a longer story, pro-democracy activists were shy about dancing and NMA lawmakers were shy about democracy. This should be the recipe for a bitter dispute and a hard fought separation, but there was none… Au gave notice and faded away!
Anyway, we should try to understand the motives behind Au Kam San avoiding an immediate departure from NMA. We have to recall that first he set up a new association and then severed his financial contribution to NMA – a percentage of his wages as a lawmaker.
Allegedly, Au complained about the NMA method of accepting and declining new membership applications to NMA as a tool to put virtual challengers at bay. It looks like Au Kam San has been feeding bad thoughts on the way Scott Chiang and Jason Chao ascended to the top of the Macau Democrats. And he tried a payback.
Scott Chiang is keeping low key on this matter, but it is clear the problem with Au is about the new applications NMA had to reject after checking their respective backgrounds. Scott Chiang maintains silence on the general profile of the refused applicants like in the oft used phrase “we never divulge the names of our clients.” He probably has no need to learn from hard experience that adding apples and oranges makes bad arithmetic and worse politics. Anyway this is unfinished business, or not business as usual.
New Macau Association may, just may, ask Au Kam San to step down from the Legislative Assembly following the departure from the pan-democratic NMA, under whose ticket he was elected to the AL. There is no requirement to do so… but if Au keeps the NMA seat, his political persona becomes fragile among pro-democracy circles, unless that is precisely the idea – to split democrats between the endogenous or wise type and exogenous or wild type. NMA knows that if there is a by-election, Ng Kuok Cheong will be alone again, naturally.
If this is the case, we would not be surprised if Au Kam San found his way back to his “alma mater,” the soon to be revamped Institute for Civic and Municipal Affairs.
Finally, a note on the warning the pro-    democracy New Macau Association is giving about the lack of transparency and public scrutiny regarding the regional extradition treaty being drafted or in progress. The call came at the same time the US upgraded its concern about the disappearance of the Mighty Current five that raises serious questions about Hong Kong’s autonomy. A State Department spokesman urged China to let them return home.