Commentary
Hong Kong’s former police chief, John Lee, will become the sixth chief executive (CE) of the Chinese-ruled city on May 8.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed its “election” system on Hong Kong, a former British colony that was handed back to Chinese rule in 1997. One characteristic of the CCP’s “election” is that the result is already known long before the process starts. Yet the Beijing appointee, although running unopposed, will still have to go through an “election” process to meet the Basic Law stipulation that the CE will be “elected.”
Although Beijing had the final say in all previous CE elections, a measure of competition was still allowed, as prescribed by the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. In the past, there was fierce competition between candidates from the same pro-Beijing camps, such as Henry Tang versus CY Leung in 2012, while anti-Beijing candidates were not excluded, such as Alan Leong of the Civic Party in 2007 and Albert Ho of the Democratic Party in 2012 (although they knew that their chance of being “elected” was next to zero).
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