ABSTRACT
After 15 years of governance under the Tung Chee-hwa and Donald Tsang Administrations, the 2012 HKSAR Chief Executive election turned a new page in Hong Kong’s politics. The election was an unprecedented three-way race with the two pro-government candidates – the former Chief Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen and the former Convenor of the Executive Council Leung Chun-ying – fighting fiercely against each other, and the no-hoper Albert Ho Chun-yan from the pro-democracy camp running to press for constitutional reforms (The Standard, 2012a, 1 March). The result of the election held on 25 March 2012 was seen as a “divisive poll”: within the 1,200-member Chief Executive Election Committee, Leung Chun-ying received 689 votes, Henry Tang received 285 votes, Albert Ho received 76 votes and 82 papers were declared invalid (South China Morning Post, 2011a, 8 April). Leung Chun-ying’s electoral victory over Henry Tang was certainly unexpected by many politicians and political pundits in Hong Kong. At the beginning of the electoral contest, Henry Tang was the forerunner because he had been groomed by the Chinese government for the position of Chief Executive for decades.1 Henry Tang was also seen as the favourite candidate of the major business tycoons and the senior civil servants and is the icon of the existing statebusiness alliance (Bloomberg, 2011, 28 September). It was comprehensible that the original plan of the Chinese government was to hand-pick Henry Tang as the next HKSAR Chief Executive (South China Morning Post, 2011b, 20 September), while Leung Chun-ying was only allowed to enter the race for the purpose of creating a stronger sense of competition in the electoral process (Ming Pao, 2011, 24 September). Unexpectedly, the Chinese government was forced to revisit its succession plan when Henry Tang’s popularity ratings and creditability were severely undermined by an unauthorized building works scandal.2 As a consequence of the scandal, the Chinese government found it politically infeasible to stick to its original plan to hand-pick Henry Tang because to choose a scandal-plagued candidate as the Chief Executive would only result in widespread public anger in Hong Kong (Reuters, 2012, 22 February). Given that Henry Tang had already become an unelectable candidate and scuttling the poll would only create further political uncertainty,3 the remaining option for the stability-obsessed Chinese
government was to throw its support behind Leung Chun-ying, who commanded a higher level of popular support in various public opinion polls.4 In making its final decision to hand-pick Leung Chun-ying instead of Henry Tang as the next HKSAR Chief Executive, the Chinese government seemed to be opting for damage control rather than seeking deliberately to change its longstanding policy to govern Hong Kong through the state-business alliance.5 Against this background, after the Chief Executive election Beijing leaders have immediately called for “grand reconciliation” (Da Hejie) within the progovernment camp. Obviously, the Chinese government wanted the new Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, similar to his two predecessors Tung Chee-hwa and Donald Tsang, to continue to govern Hong Kong through a political alliance of business elites, senior civil servants and pro-Beijing leftists. The intention of Beijing’s leaders was clearly reflected in the organization of Leung Chun-ying’s governing coalition. As in the past, Leung Chun-ying’s political team is a mixture of political ministers of the former administration, senior civil servants, business elites and professionals (Table E.1), while the unofficial members of its Executive Council mainly comprises business leaders, professionals and representatives of major pro-government political parties (Table E.2). In other words, Leung Chun-ying is expected to continue to govern Hong Kong through a political alliance dominated by business elites and senior civil servants while the proBeijing leftists continue to serve as minority partners. Unfortunately, the Chinese government’s game plan suffered another setback because the post-election developments clearly demonstrate that Leung Chunying’s governing coalition is a much more vulnerable and incohesive governing
coalition when compared with his two predecessors. Not the favourite candidate of the major business tycoons and the senior civil servants, Leung Chun-ying so far has failed to repair rifts within the state-business alliance. On the one hand, the Leung Chun-ying Administration conflicts openly with the business sector on issues such as the introduction of stamp duty measures for addressing the overheated property market.6 On the other hand, Leung Chun-ying and his supporters have been embroiled in a series of quarrels with bureaucrat-turned political ministers and senior civil servants on budget allocations7 and public appointments.8 Even for the pro-Beijing leftists, who usually refrain from openly challenging the Chief Executive, publicly opposed the Leung Chun-ying Administration on a number of policy initiatives such as the expansion of landfills.9 Despite Beijing’s leaders’ repeated calls for unity and support for the new government, Leung Chun-ying’s governing coalition is proving to be built on sand (South China Morning Post, 2012, 23 February). If the state-business alliance was proved to be an “ineffective” governing coalition under the two former Chief Executives, Tung Chee-hwa and Donald Tsang, from 1997 to 2012, the situation facing Leung Chun-ying is much worse given that under his administration the state-business alliance is not only “ineffective” but is even gradually “disintegrating”. Governing through a loose and incohesive governing coalition, the Leung Chun-ying Administration is
particularly vulnerable to the challenges of the democratic opposition and the civil society. Coupled with a series of scandals that have plagued his governing team,10 unlike his two predecessors Leung Chun-ying did not enjoy any honeymoon period (Figure E.1) and his administration has been plunged into a political quagmire of pervasive public discontent and distrust almost from the first day of its inauguration (Figures E.2-E.3). The governance problems facing the Leung Chun-ying Administration once again demonstrated that the origin of the post-1997 governance crisis goes deeper and beyond the legitimacy deficit thesis because the failure of the postcolonial state to organize a viable governing coalition has already set the scene
for the governance crisis. To use the words of Levitsky and Way (2010), in order to provide a comprehensive account of the hybrid politics of the HKSAR, the opposition-centred explanation should be combined with a critical analysis of governing coalition building so as to examine the changing balance of powers between the post-colonial state and the opposition forces.
