Leong a long shot for top Hong Kong post

For the first time ever, a candidate without Beijing's blessing is running for Hong Kong's Chief Executive.

from the March 23, 2007 edition

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For that very reason, some well-known pro-democracy leaders have refused to back Leong's quixotic venture into top-level politics. "The whole thing is a farce," snorts Emily Lau, a veteran legislator from the Frontier Party. "It is not an election. It is not for real, and it should not be treated as if it is for real."

Other democratic activists, however, say Leong's doomed campaign has served a larger purpose by obliging the chief executive, for the first time, to defend his policies in public and to answer unrehearsed questions from ordinary citizens in two televised debates, watched by 2 million people, that have proved to be the highlights of the campaign.

"These elections have not changed the system, but they have changed peoples' expectations of the people in power," argues Christine Loh, head of a local think tank called Civic Exchange. "They have created a new political culture, and Alan Leong has done a great service to all of us."

The debates, in which the candidates took questions from reporters, politicians, and members of the public, "kindled a lot of interest in the community," says George Cautherley, a member of Leong's campaign team. Shopping malls broadcast the debates on giant screens and nearly two million of Hong Kong's seven million residents tuned in.

"In Chinese history we have never seen the sitting leader of such a high entity being questioned by the public and challenged by an opponent in front of the media," says Michael DeGolyer, who teaches politics at the Baptist University of Hong Kong.

It was during the second debate, facing Leong's demand for universal suffrage when the next chief executive elections are held in 2012, that Tsang pledged to "thoroughly resolve the problem of direct elections in five years." Hong Kong's Basic Law, which serves as a constitution, set direct elections through universal suffrage as an "ultimate aim" but set no timetable.

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