UDUMBARA.NET
Hong Kongâs Chief Executive Election Was Political Show; Universal Suffrage Is Null and Void
The outcome of the May 8 Hong Kong chief executive election came as no surprise. Lee Ka-chiu, the only candidate chosen by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was declared the winner after a staged performance under the âOne Country, Two Systemsâ constitution.Of the 1,461 eligible voters, 1,428 cast their ballots in the May 7 election. In the end, Lee received 1,416 âYESâ votes and eight âNOâ votes, the highest percentage of votes ever recorded by a Hong Kong chief executive, surpassing Donald Tsangâs 82.26 percent in 2007. However, Lee is also the chief executive with the lowest public approval rating in Hong Kongâs history.
Since the CCP takeover of Hong Kong, the election committee in charge of selecting the chief executive has increased from 800 to 1,500, but itâs still composed of only elites, people inspired or appointed by the government.
Universal Suffrage:Â History of Broken Promises
Since the CCP took over Hong Kong in 1997, there have been voices of support for universal suffrage among the pro-democracy groups and even the pro-CCP parties, but Hong Kong has moved further and further away from the promised goal of all adults having the right to vote in its Basic Law.
In 2007, the National Peopleâs Congress (NPC), the CCPâs rubber legislature, approved universal suffrage for Hong Kongâs chief executive by 2017.
However, during the âpolitical reform consultationâ that began in 2013, the government ruled out âcitizen nomination,â calling it a violation of the Basic Law. On June 10, 2014, during the consultation period, the information office of the CCPâs State Council published a white paper entitled âThe Implementation of âOne Country, Two Systemsâ in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,â stating that the Chief Executive candidate âmust be a patriot and a lover of Hong Kong.â
On Aug. 31, 2014, the Standing Committee of the NPC decided universal suffrage would be used to select the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and how the Legislative Council would be formed in 2016 (Decision 831). It decided not to apply civil and political party nominations. It also stipulated the size and composition of the nominating committee, that a Chief Executive candidate must receive the support of more than half of the nominating committee members to become a candidate, and that the number of candidates is limited to two to three.
The â831 Decisionâ directly triggered the large-scale âUmbrella Movementâ and âOccupy Centralâ protests in Hong Kong. For 79 days, beginning on Sept. 26, 2014, secondary and university student organizations and Hong Kong citizens launched a series of civil disobedience campaigns demanding true universal suffrage. The protesters spontaneously occupied several main roads and staged sit-ins and marches. Their main demands were to withdraw the â831 Decision,â to obtain the right of nomination for the chief executive election, and to abolish the functional constituencies of the Legislative Council.
After several false political reforms, the promise of universal suffrage in the Basic Law was never achieved. Furthermore, the Hong Kong government disqualified a number of democratic members of the Legislative Council in 2016, and attempted to amend the âFugitive Offenders Ordinanceâ (known as the extradition bill) in Parliament in 2019.
These factors eventually led to the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) Movement in 2019. During the movement, Lee was appointed as Secretary of Security. Hong Kong police suppressed demonstrators with water cannons, rubber bullets, and even live ammunition. After the movement, the CCP bypassed Hong Kongâs legislative process and enacted the Hong Kong National Security Law, accusing foreign forces of intervening in the movement.
After the enactment of the National Security Law, in 2021, the CCP moved ahead to âimproveâ the electoral system based on the principle of âpatriots ruling Hong Kong.â It blatantly bypassed the provisions of the Basic Law and directly allowed the NPC to decide on the future methods of selecting Hong Kongâs Chief Executive and the Legislative Council.
By establishing a Candidate Eligibility Committee and changing the composition of the Election Committee, the CCP further narrowed the room for elections that already lacked democratic elements to complement its âfull governing powerâ over Hong Kong.
Leeâs Low Approval Rating
Chung Kim-wah, an outspoken scholar and deputy chief executive of Hong Kongâs Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), said Lee commented after the election that getting 1,416 votes encouraged him and gave him a strong sense of confidence.
âBut if such an election can increase confidence, youâre either a fool, or fooling yourself, [because] the votes were not earned by him but given by Beijing,â Chung told the Epoch Times.
In March, a month before he resigned as Chief Secretary, Lee had a net approval rating of minus 14 percentage points, according to a poll by PORI.
Looking at Leeâs