A survey
conducted last week by the Association of Macao New Vision made the front page of
the Chinese Daily Cheng Pou 正報 on September 27th revealing that the public rating of all
twelve elected members of the Legislative Assembly had dropped compared to last
year’s survey, even though Ng Kuok Cheong (a democrat) is still considered the
best performer and Kwan Tsui Hang (traditional association, Macau Federation of
Trade Unions’) remains the most well-known of the whole lot.
As far as the
big picture is concerned, a bit more than 58% of the respondents consider that
the Assembly has done an “OK job” (my free translation of “half-half”, 一半一半) in the past
legislature, and the rest is highly polarized: only
a bit more than 15% are satisfied, and a bit more than 17% dissatisfied.
Strikingly, this third installation
of the survey reveals that the proportion of “OK job” appraisals has risen
constantly, some 8-percentage points more than in 2010, and that about half the
respondents don’t believe there has been any improvement when compared to the
previous legislature.
Now, looking
at individual scores, the three best performers are two democrats, Ng Kuok Cheong
and Au Kam San, and a vocal independent legislator cum-civil servant representative
José Pereira Coutinho: surprise, surprise, together with Kwan Tsui Hang, these
are the only four legislators scoring 60+ on a scale of 100. Then, in
descending order, come Ho Ion Sang (traditional association, UGAMM known as Kai
Fong), Chan Wai Chi (a democrat), Lee Chong Cheng (traditional association, Macau
Federation of Trade Unions), Mak Soi Kun (business interests), Melinda Chan (gambling
interests), Ung Choi Kun (business/ gambling interests), Chan Meng Kam (gambling
interests) and last, but not least, Angela Leong (gambling interests).
From a purely
subjective perspective — exactly what this survey is about, the public
perception — it is stating the obvious to say that elected legislators representing
gambling interests fail to impress the citizenry. Although multiple factors can
explain this state of affairs, one can easily suspect that what wins the
praises of the public has to do with the actual social engagement of individual
legislators and of course with the capacity of these legislators to defend the
general good of the community at large, rather than narrow and segmented
interests. One cannot help but notice that all legislators representing business
interests are in the lower half of the rankings.
If one connects
these perceptions to facts (attendance in plenary sessions and permanent commissions;
written and oral interpellations of the
government) one can easily find causality relations: Ng Kuok Cheong attends all plenary sessions
and permanent commission meetings and is for sure one of the most vocal
legislators of the Assembly, both behind a microphone and in writing; whereas
Angela Leong misses a lot of permanent commission meetings and writes four
times less than Mr Ng. Interestingly enough, the fact that the overall rating
of legislators (including the democrats) has continuously declined in the past
two years despite the citizenry’s attested growing political awareness seems to
indicate a rising disenchantment towards the political elite at large, probably
induced by a lack of renewal of political personnel. And remember, this is just
an indicative survey, with all its methodological shortcomings, dealing with elected
members of the Assembly: Imagine what the appraisal of Vitor Cheung Lup Kwan or
Fong Chi Keong would be, both of them indirectly elected and overall winners of
the title for legislators least present in plenary sessions…
Published in Macau Daily Times on September 28th 2012
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