On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s wealthiest businessman, Li Ka-shing, said he was “very disappointed” over the Hong Kong government’s failure to enact its reform package for the 2017 election of the chief executive, the city’s top political official. When asked who was responsible for what is now widely called a fiasco, Li ducked the question. “Everyone in Hong Kong is discussing this,” he said.
He’s right. Just about everybody in Hong Kong is talking about the events that unfolded last Thursday in Legco, as the city’s Legislative Council is known. The legislators, after a 20-month drama, finally voted on China’s proposal to “reform” the procedures for the election of the chief executive.
Last August, the National People’s Congress in Beijing issued its proposed procedures for the chief executive contest. China’s rubber-stamp legislature agreed to universal suffrage but insisted on nominating procedures so restrictive that only Beijing’s hand-picked candidates could compete in the election. The Hong Kong government then submitted Beijing’s plan to Legco.
