Survey: residents lose confidence in local lawmakers

Ho Iat Seng

A recent study shows that residents have lost confidence in Macau’s lawmakers, TDM News reported. The President of the Legislative Assembly (AL), Ho Iat Seng, said the drop in confidence is most likely related to the controversial “compensation bill” which would offer top government officials lavish retirement packages.
Macau’s leader scrapped the bill last May after two of the city’s biggest demonstrations since the 1999 handover. The Association of Macao New Vision released a survey providing a glimpse into residents’ evaluation of lawmakers’ performance throughout the current year.
The AL president said that the effect of this bill on residents’ confidence in lawmakers’ was inevitable. However, he hopes this will change in the future. “It was not just the directly-elected lawmakers, but everyone had a low score. This is mainly because of the major event in Macau. I hope everybody can do a better job in the future,” Ho Iat Seng said.
The survey showed that there was a drop in citizens’ general satisfaction toward legislators’ performance. Furthermore, the Chief Executive recently appointed two new lawmakers to the Executive Council for the next five years. Asked if this situation would impact on their work performance, Mr Seng said that he has worked as an Executive Council member before. “What I hope now is to enable the law-making intentions to be discussed in the committee, so it can be a better communication platform,” he stated. CP