Candidates, as well as voters, would have appreciated a smoother electoral process and a more fair and balanced contest. But that – various analysts point out – would have required an effective Legislative Assembly Electoral Commission. Vasco Fong’s team came under heavy fire in a debate organised by Macau CLOSER and the Portuguese daily Ponto Final at Clube Militar. On the table were democracy, the lack thereof, the role of the internet in the 2009 campaign, and what Macau is missing in terms of discourse and politics.Paul Pun was the first candidate on the last list, the sixteenth, and he never stopped playing with that fact. The irony revealed an awareness, shortly after the polls closed, that this democratic election had been nothing of the kind. The Caritas Macau Secretary entered the race knowing it would not be easy to win (he was not, in fact, elected). But that was not about to stop him.
In the Clube Militar debate organised by Macau CLOSER and Ponto Final, Paul Pun was first on the podium, speaking about his social causes, what motivates him, what he expected to get out of these elections. “Happiness,” he laughed, visibly glad just to have participated in the process.
In quite a different mood were Pereira Coutinho and Rita Santos who, with a few reservations and a certain dose of nerves, were expecting a positive outcome. Pereira Coutinho was re-elected for a second term, but Rita Santos was left out (see table of results).
President of the Macau Civil Servant’s Association (Associação dos Trabalhadores da Função Pública de Macau), Coutinho is already a veteran of political proceedings. The leader of Nova Esperança (New Hope) compared these elections with those of 2005 (the year he won his seat), lamenting the fact that this time the lists’ manifestos were not sent in the post to the voters.
The incumbent candidate had further complaints. “I got numerous calls from people asking me where they should vote; they didn’t know which polling station to go to,” he explained. “They didn’t receive the notification in the mail, though they had had no change of address.”
That said, he believed the balance of the campaign was “positive.” Attorney Frederico Rato, one of the analysts invited by Macau CLOSER and Ponto Final to moderate the election night debate, pressed Coutinho to comment on possible alliances within the Legislative Assembly. The deputy’s answer was clear: “It is very difficult to establish alliances, because the majority of deputies are subsidised by the Government or the Macau Foundation. In other words, they are not at liberty to make their own decisions.” That is why, he insisted, “the most important thing is to have elected deputies who are independent, both politically and financially.”
Rita Santos, Nova Esperança’s number two, did not mince words in protesting “the use of taxis by one of the lists to bring voters to the polls.” What is more, she recounted, there was a list that did not refrain from “wearing t-shirts” on election day.
“Between 6 and 8pm we saw a great many votes being bought,” she said, adding “perhaps I need to wait for the next one” to be elected. Her list has already filed a complaint with the Commission Against Corruption. Still, the number two candidate said she walks away from the campaign with good memories, foremost among them “being in touch with the people.”
Culture what?
Agnes Lam made culture one of the principal weapons in her campaign arsenal. Unhappily – as the number six list, Civil Watch, would discover – it was a subject that said little or nothing to many of the people on the streets of Macau during two weeks of intense campaigning.
In general terms, the ex-journalism professor’s assessment weighed out on the positive side. “The team feels very good about the campaign; it was harder than we hoped,” she confessed with a hearty laugh, adding that the list did manage to introduce some new ways of doing things in election time.
“We tried very hard to promote our political platform, and we wanted people to change the way they choose their candidates,” she said, stressing that, in Macau, voters’ choices are based mostly on identity rather than the ideas advocated by a certain list.
The process to which Lam dedicated herself, that of creating a new political culture, is not easy, recognised the candidate, who recounted a few episodes from her campaign. “We gave our best,” she assured, offering the hope that the new Legislative Assembly will be more consistent in political terms than the last one. It will not in any way feature the new stance Agnes wanted to
introduce there. The academic came close to being elected, but this would not be her race (see table of results). Visual artist James Chu, Civil Watch’s number three, expressed satisfaction at having got more people to look at culture with new eyes, through his involvement in the elections. “The thing is, and it hurts me to say it, the great majority of Macau residents care nothing about culture, something that can be seen, as well, in the Legislative Assembly, where little is said on the subject.”
Handing out pamphlets, Agnes Lam’s list was confronted with the question, “But why do you have these ideas?” The fact that they had the opportunity to pass on the message is enough for James Chu. “We hope there will be greater interest in the future,” he concluded.
Frustrated academics
Bruce Kwong, a professor at the University of Macau (UMAC), lamented what he considers the inflexibility of the authorities, compared with current practices in almost any other part of the world.
The political scientist had a team of students ready to conduct verbal surveys of voters at the polls, but, as he told it, the students were prevented from carrying out their work by the staff on duty at the polling stations.
By the time the misunderstanding was resolved, there remained just a few hours in which his intended research could be carried out, explained the academic, who feels “Government intervention in the electoral process was at its highest to date.” He concluded by saying the research obtained was insufficient to constitute a qualified study.
For the last 10 years, Angus Cheong, also on the faculty at UMAC, has dedicated himself to the study of politics and the Internet. The university professor had his own reasons to complain about the attitude of the authorities responsible for monitoring the elections.
Cheong revealed that he had created an election study, which he wanted to implement before the end of the campaign. The idea was not to analyse the way the vote was going, he explained. Rather, it was to understand the political behaviour of Macau residents. “In the meantime, I read in the papers that this type of survey was illegal, so I wrote an email to the Legislative Assembly Electoral Commission (CAEAL),” dated September 14th.
A response did not arrive for days, and Angus Cheong began to realise it was going to be difficult to publish his research findings. When a reply finally came, signed by CAEAL President Vasco Fong, it was already the 19th, and the answer was a big disappointment. “I asked for a clarification of Article 75; what I got was a response from the CAEAL dealing with Article 76!” he exclaimed, audibly disillusioned. The professor ended up putting forward some of the results from his study (see text with this article) in a recent presentation which explained the influence of the Internet on the election campaign.
Eilo Yu, another professor on the UMAC faculty and a political analyst, said at the Clube Militar that he believed an effort was made this year by the Government to “improve justice in the elections.” On the other hand, he countered, “When we see how the CAEAL deals with the irregularities, we need to look very carefully at whether it has the courage and the capacity to combat these irregularities” in the election campaign.
All equal, all different
“I was quite disillusioned when Vasco Fong stated he would not divulge the names of the lists involved in cases of suspected electoral corruption,” Eilo Yu complained. “I understand the need for judicial secrecy, but it seems to me that the voters have the right to know what is going on in order to decide who they will vote for.”
On this point, political scientist Eric Sautedé – one of the speakers at the Clube Militar on election night – said the press has a role to play. “There needs to be greater pressure from the journalists when it comes to cases of electoral corruption.”
Not just the electoral corruption, but also the scheming, trickery, defamation and skirting of the law that has been recently verified – offering free dinners, disseminating rumours and posting election propaganda in unauthorised locations – appalled some of those present at the debate, among them Attorney Miguel de Senna Fernandes and Nuno Lima Bastos.
The lawyer began by invoking his disadisagreement with the CAEAL’s decision on what the candidates could and could not do before the start of the campaign, stressing that it left them with less freedom of expression than any other citizen. What shocked him most, however, was seeing election propaganda posted all over, from shops to bakeries, after the official start of the campaign, “some of it a mere hundred metres from the Department of Public Prosecution,” he stressed. “You can’t blame those who actually obey the law for asking themselves whether following the rules is even really worth the trouble.”
For Lima Bastos, everything that has happened recently is cast in an even uglier light when one considers the way electoral corruption provides leverage against democracy to the Government, which used precisely the argument that elections must be transparent and just in order to maintain the Assembly’s current electoral system and avoid an increase in the number of seats elected by direct and universal suffrage. “What will they say in 2013?,” demanded the lawyer and analyst. “That they will again refuse to increase the number of directly elected deputies because of the corruption this year?”
Democracy and Conservatism
As it turned out, democracy was on the table for the better part of a debate at which not even one member of the list Voz Plural (Plural Voices of Macau) was present. But Miguel de Senna Fernandes, a supporter of Casimiro Pinto’s list, accepted the invitation from Macau CLOSER and Ponto Final, explaining that, though the movement’s arrival on the scene may have been “tardy,” Voz Plural’s campaign was quite positive.
Senna Fernandes stressed that the list is “no longer just a Macanese group,” having managed to spread the message that “Macau’s society is not monocultural, but multicultural.” The attorney added he doesn’t believe Casimiro Pinto had any “great expectation for the results. It would be good enough if the project continues.” The region’s foremost advocate of the Macanese language (Patuá) took the opportunity to state that, should Casimiro Pinto not be elected, he would like to see Agnes Lam win a seat on the Assembly, because she would be “a new face, a new energy.” He did not have his wish fulfilled this time.
Also present at the debate session was Patrícia Cheong, who was a candidate on Angela Leong’s list in 2005. “This year I wasn’t invited,” the PR executive said. “Maybe I’ll run in 2013.”
According to the former member of Stanley Ho’s wife’s team, “business owners are not represented” in these elections, not even with the large number of people in the gaming sector. “It’s the junkets that are being represented, but gaming is not just the junkets,” she pointed out, adding that she enjoyed seeing the debut of a list like Agnes Lam’s, with “a new face.”
“Macau needs to change; it needs to grow, to modernise,” Cheong stressed. “Being a business owner in Macau today just doesn’t pay off, and the Ao Man Long case made everything even more difficult,” she asserted, making further reference to the obstacles in the way of the region’s small and medium sized enterprises.
Since the election results were only released some seven hours after the polls closed, there was no opportunity to discuss winners and losers. It was the prediction of Frederico Rato that came closest to the true outcome.
In what he called a “conservative scenario” – to reflect the city in which the prediction was being made – the attorney calculated that there would most likely be 12 deputies elected from lists founded on movements already represented within the Assembly. In another, more daring scenario, there would be space for one or two new political forces. It was conservatism that won the day.
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