2012 CE ‘election’: public going off-script

With a public opinion poll lead of 52% to 26% over rival Henry Tang, CY Leung would be a shoe-in as Hong Kong’s next Chief Executive – if the public could vote. Instead, the winner will be chosen by Beijing and ‘elected’ in a sham poll with 1,200 mostly obedient voters. But if it is to have the slightest shred of credibility, the result cannot flatly contradict the popular mood. And, as the South China Morning Post says today, this leaves the Central People’s Government in a quandary.

Dreamers, naïfs and eternal optimists would love to believe that the Chinese leaders are happy to take orders from the people of Hong Kong and will at this stage drop Henry as their undeclared but laboriously-groomed preference. This could happen, but it would take riots, or at least a 2003-style jasmine uprising. Assuming the masses do not take to the streets (give it a couple of years), and with establishment bigwigs like Bank of East Asia boss David Li having nailed their colours to Henry’s mast, there is no going back: Henry’s opinion poll ratings must be improved.

His performance thus far has been little short of disgraceful when contrasted with that of CY, and his PR manager should ask him some tough questions. Being born into a rich family, you know everything will be handed to you on a plate, but do you have to be so obvious about it? Sure, having already been earmarked for the job, you’d prefer not to go through a stupid pseudo-campaign, but can’t you at least pretend to make an effort? With CY mingling with the poor and dispossessed and wowing students, what are doing collecting endorsements from people like landlord Allen Zeman? Most of all, why do you come across as such a total and utter dork?

He needs to be seen and photographed out and about more, doing the Hong Kong equivalent of Vladimir Putin’s bear-wrestling or bare-torso parachuting. That’ll be worth five percentage points. He needs to come up with an aggressively populist platform: HK$6,000-a-year handouts forever, tons more public housing and inane allowances and free lunches all over the place. Another five points. When the Imperial Handshake finally comes and people realize it will be Henry whether they like it or not, that‘ll be worth yet another five points in the polls – a sort of resigned, no-point-in-not-supporting-him phenomenon we’ve seen before.

One or two well-publicized flashes of what appears to be articulacy, a bit of underhand ‘come clean’ anti-Leung sniping in sympathetic media, trust that the pro-democrats – last heard of subverting the constitution, apparently – leech a bit of CY’s ratings, and touch wood not too many embarrassing photos of bastard offspring turn up. He should just about scrape by. (And then the fun really starts.)

We celebrate the opening of the weekend with an authentic quote from one of Henry’s limited number of fans: he “says the right things according to what other more intelligent people tell him to say”. With supporters like that…

Click to hear Count Five’s ‘Revelation in Slow Motion’!

 

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15 Responses to 2012 CE ‘election’: public going off-script

  1. Real Tax Payer says:

    Ah Hemlock, The lady in my office who said lovely quote that at yesterday’s lunchtime straw poll where CY won 7 : 2 vs enery the orse (with one abstention) will be deeply honored

    🙂 😉

    BTW : CY studied in Bristol, which is my home. Now that’s worth another 5% points .

    CY was campaigning yesterday in my stomping ground of Wanchai. Good stuff . Wish I had known so I could have gone to shake his hand and wish him well.

    Never seen nor will ever see the enery there mixing with the riff raff (like me) except maybe if he gets desperate .

    PS : For a real laugh, read Tom Holland in today’s SCMP Business Post Monitor column .

  2. maugrim says:

    Scene: Tang’s campaign headquarters

    Guru 1: lets go over the list again HT, visit to stinky food markets, check, patting dogs and babies, check, getting rid of the tie, check. Pretty soon, we will unleash operation Barbarossa, an open topped bus, waving hands, lots of flags, t shirts, you get the picture.

    Tang: I never had relations with that woman

    Guru 1: Who? No, not Barbara, Barbarossa, HT, Barabarossa. Don’t you have a Masters from the US? (sighs) Oh never mind.

    Guru 2: HT, we are really going to blast things along with the next stage. Unlimited dog parks and spaces in ESF schools for the bananas, annual subsidies for everything for the greedy, we’ll send Jimmy Lai to jail for the black hair brigade, free lunch boxes and bus tours for old folk and unlimited erections for Heung Yee Kuk members.

    HT: Erections? I did not have sexual relations with Barbara.

    Gurus: Sigh. We do have the Hello Tang Kitty doll available at all Mc Donalds and 7/11’s.

    HT: Your tie looks nice.

  3. Big E says:

    The same poll has Albert Ho at 3% so I wouldn’t be reading too much into that.

    We already know whom the SCMP wants to win.

  4. Big Al says:

    It’s great. We have our very own “George W Bush” in “Henry Y Y Tang”. Just think of all the fun we’ll have once he becomes CE!

  5. Big Al says:

    Here’s a dubya quote from Christopher Hitchens (Hardball with Chris Matthews, October 31, 2000) that can be applied verbatim to our ‘enry : “He’s unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated and apparently quite proud of all of these things”.

  6. FB3 says:

    @RTP

    Another 10 points if he starts of his policy speech with “alright my Babbers” & then goes on to detail his plans to alleviate the housing problems by building more “Gurt Lush affordable housing”

  7. Real Tax Payer says:

    @ Maugrim

    😉 😉 😉

    Does it go further? This is classic stuff, and sad to say you may even be not so far from truth

    PS: Hemlock is correct : being photographed with D-the-banker-Li is more of a liability . No wonder enery’s ratings are going down. I personally think this becoming a popularity poll for who likes and does not like the establishment = D Duck and Co

    When D Duck said he would ” get the job done” did he really mean that the ” job” was to f**k up any chance of anyone on his ‘team’ ( just a figure of speech) ever holding any position of power ever again with any respect from the public. Well, anyway, that’s what he has succeeded in doing , and that’s about the only thing he seems to have done . I mean : DO read Tom Holland this morning – what a buffoon we have as a FS these days

  8. mumphLT says:

    In a City where the majority of the population struggle to afford decent property (if they can afford any at all) & struggle to get their children into a decent school or at the very least one they prefer & who have job insecurity and wages that in real terms are eroded by food inflation why the fuck do horseface’s supporters think being backed by the rich and privileged who profit from all these negatives will get him any popular support?

    Its self defeating; ‘You are rich, privileged, lazy and thick – a clown, a puppet…most of the people in Hong Kong dislike & distrust you – so we are going to get a banker & a tycoon or two to support you and that fat nazi bitch that rims Beijing – she’s going to do a little dance too.’

  9. Vir Cotto says:

    Please, please anybody but the Henry T model for HK going forward.

    Apart from all the other bumbling stuff: Henry T has already sucked up to the Heung Yee Kuk and offered to allow extra storeys for village houses in the New Territories (3 storeys only officially allowed at present) and relaxing other planning consents, whatever that means.

    Please picture what will happen to NT villages if existing deng and village houses start building for the sky. Will this be say 5-6 storeys for Gweilos and other interlopers and 6-7 storys for HYK croneys and their “financial” supporters.

    So many NT village houses are already crammed together without adequate vehicle access, planning, light, fire separation or emergency service access for the sole aim of maximising plot numbers inside existing village boundaries. How will relaxing these already inadequate and uninforced planning policies possibly improve amenity?

    Such planning blight in the New Territories will be impossible undo or unscramble after the fact, and could well be Henry T’s most lasting legacy of bad poicy in the long term.

  10. darovia says:

    Village Houses: I found myself agreeing with almost every word of Lau Nai Keung’s SCMP rant today.

    Can I be cured or is this terminal?

  11. Maybe its more subtle than we think: the black haired brigade,with the privilege of not having to be elected, have gazed into a crystal ball and realised that the big lychee on its backside is about to become a big boil. So step one, flood the place with sprog spouting and money laden women and tourists, give free lunch boxes to the poor and infirm. Step two, impose a spoilt sprog sprouting adultery addicted idiot child of riches and privilege as leader, Step three , step back and watch it implode. Step four, step in and with grateful thanks from flag waving strategiclly placed loyal populance, reduce Hong Kong from itself. Step five, every five years remind us of what happened last time and cancel this irritable pretence at democracy…..

  12. PropertyDeveloper says:

    Vir raises an interesting point: will the amnesty on multiple extra floors on “village houses” built on land acquired after 1972 proposed by Lau Nai Keung apply only to those he calls “self-styled indigenous villagers”? It could raise a few interesting legal quibbles (cf. my ramblings a while ago on how you could know whether a given lychee tree was foreign, and therefore to be cut down). The legality of constructions mandated by foreign-passport holder native sons from Manchester using non-indigenous labour would then critically hinge on the intentions of all those involved.

    “Village” house, incidentally, is a misnomer, as there are many exemptions, exceptions and tolerances (“flexibility”) and a large proportion these days are built outside the villages.

  13. mumphLT says:

    Let’s simplify it to what it is; houses built by triads that the govt is too scared to deal with.

    To solve the problem a govt with gonads would call an amnesty and introduce totally new legislation that was not prejudiced.

    But it won’t do that because it is more scared of the nasty banjo players than it is of honest folk.

  14. Jason90 says:

    Lau Nai Keung, Jake van der Kamp (historically), darovia and me all in agreement on village houses.
    Maybe it was the eclipse?
    Perhaps CY will win and give the people back their land….

  15. Tony_in_BKK says:

    I would suggest that it’s not CY Leung’s mooted membership of the CCP that’s of any real significance but rather his alleged membership (leadership?) of another, rather less savoury (if such a thing were possible) Hong Kong-based organisation, which switched its allegiance from the KMT to the CCP some time in the 1970s.

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