HONG
KONG: Analysts said Hong Kong's new
leader will struggle to balance the interests of powerful tycoons after he
secured Beijing's blessing to guide the city to democratic elections in 2017.
A
1,200-member committee stacked with pro-Beijing elites on Sunday chose former
property consultant Leung Chun-ying to take over from outgoing Chief Executive
Donald Tsang in July, in a vote that excluded the vast majority of Hong Kong's
seven million people.
The
"small-circle election" fell under the One Party, Two Systems
arrangement by which China has ruled Hong Kong since its 1997 handover from
Britain.
But the
process was met with demonstrations and indifference from ordinary Hong Kongers
who are hungry for democratic change.
Perhaps
most alarmingly for Leung and his backers on the mainland, he failed to win the
vote of key business leaders on the election committee, such as Asia's richest
man, Li Ka-shing.
So two
of the most important constituencies in Hong Kong, the people and the tycoons,
appear to be at best ambivalent, and at worst hostile, toward the 57-year-old
whose political cunning has earned him the nickname "the wolf".
"Most
people have reservations about Leung because he has been seen as beholden to
Beijing's support," Chinese University history professor Willy Lam said.
"There
will also be problems because he doesn't enjoy the support of big business
groups... He has to do a lot of work to conciliate the powerful elites."
Observers
said that with only 61 per cent of the election committee's vote -- the lowest
of any chief executive since the handover -- the man commonly known as CY could
not rest on his laurels.
"The
immediate challenge facing Leung is daunting. He has to bridge an unprecedented
political divide arising from the cut-throat race between the two
pro-establishment camps," the South China Morning Post wrote in an
editorial.
It
noted that he received only 17.8 per cent of the vote in a mock election by the
University of Hong Kong on Saturday. More than half of the 223,000 voters
rejected all the candidates and returned blank ballots.
"Had
there been a popular vote, it would have been inconclusive," the Post
said, calling Leung the "weakest leader-in-waiting" the city had seen
since 1997.
Persistent
rumours of secret links to the Chinese Communist Party, combined with his
populist campaign rhetoric about narrowing the wealth gap and providing more
public housing, have spooked members of the business community.
Li, the
83-year-old billionaire whose Cheung Kong Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa are
two of Hong Kong's leading conglomerates, refused to switch support from
pro-business candidate Henry Tang even after Beijing dropped Tang in favour of
Leung following a string of embarrassing scandals.
As the
unprecedented split in the establishment camp widened, the pro-Beijing and
pro-business Liberal Party urged its 29 election committee delegates to cast
blank ballots in protest.
"We
expect it will be tough for (Leung) in the next five years. We believe at this
stage the government needs to think how it can restore public confidence,"
Liberal Party chairwoman Miriam Lau said after the vote.
"We
will monitor the government to ensure it does not jeopardise Hong Kong's core
values, economic development, business environment and the livelihood of Hong
Kong people."
City
University political scientist Joseph Cheng said the southern city's increasing
economic dependence on the mainland would push Leung even further into Beijing's
political debt.
"So
basically it will be a weaker administration, a weaker Hong Kong economy that
needs more support from Beijing, and therefore he will be more subservient to
Beijing's will," he said.
Perhaps
Leung's most difficult challenge will be paving the way for full suffrage in
the next chief executive election in 2017, as promised by Beijing.
In his
victory speech, he pledged to work towards an "enhanced democracy with an
open and fair election system".
"Hong
Kongers are rightly sceptical that Beijing will ever allow such a thing. Mr
Leung should prove them wrong," the Financial Times wrote in an editorial
on Tuesday.
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AFP/fa
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