Let’s be honest, mumbling half-hearted speeches full of empty promises year after year borders on art. More so when you happen to be an accidental leader with absolutely no talent for public encounters. Even more so when you know that nobody will really pay attention, that this will be your last policy address and that you will never be held accountable for anything. There is a Samuel Beckett-esque dimension to it, like “Waiting for Godot” in politics: it is absurd and surreal at the same time, and yet it impacts people’s lives, and it even allows human beings to die under your watch because you have been standing by instead of acting.
The absence of human empathy in the whole exercise is truly striking. Last year when Typhoon Hato had just devastated the city and killed 10 people less than three months before, the 2018 policy address started with the exhilarating words: “In accordance with the Basic Law…” (this is also true in Chinese). But clearly, last year’s circumstances were not to be blamed as the 2016 incipit was even worse — “In accordance with Article 65 of the Basic Law of Macao…” Mind you, this was not always the case. Back in March 2010, Chief Executive (CE) Chui Sai On’s first-ever policy address started with the words “Spring is in the air…” 春暖花開，萬物欣欣向榮之際. Should we always have policy addresses delivered in early spring then?
Irony aside, something was broken between the CE and the citizens along the way, something that we can date back to the early months of Chui’s second term. The attempt at mending things now appears crude when compared to the first entry on Chui’s brand new blog posted in May 2015 and the latest one pinned two weeks ago in mid-October: we went from “Serene and calm, he wisely observes the course of the world” to “Integrating into the Greater Bay and initiating a new development”! A failed poetic attempt will always be better than repetitive gobbledygook. Chui did hit rock-bottom popularity in December 2017 when, for the first time ever, a CE’s approval rating went below the symbolic 50% line. This could thus explain the attempt at humbleness, despite the absolute dullness of the phrasing: we went from “Development Plan in Progress for Building a Perfect Home” (the official translation!) in November 2016 to “Be pragmatic yet enterprising, and share the fruits of development” in November 2017.
What will really be at stake on Nov. 15 and in the following days has not much to do with either the title or the substance of the address. We now have a five-year plan and its yearly rate of execution will certainly be close to the one announced last year — 80 percent or more! Then, the whole first part of the address will consist of sweeteners, among which the wealth partaking scheme will play an essential role. Actually, given that Chui’s reputation will never be salvaged and that he will soon be gone, I would suggest that now is the perfect time to suppress what was introduced by Edmund Ho in 2008: the wealth partaking scheme, from a purely rational point of view, is both inefficient and unfair.
No, what will really matter in two weeks’ time is the positioning of the political heavyweights for next year’s (s)election. If tradition prevails, Ho Iat Seng will be given the nod and criticisms directed at the government will be loud and persistent. If capacity — who is credited for taking the right steps in preventing another disaster when Typhoon Mangkhut blasted the city in September? — and political rectitude triumph, Secretary Wong Sio Chak will have the upper hand, and patriotic family politics, along with incompetence will be severely and durably crippled.
And if there should be no room for the king’s jester to maneuver— Secretary Tam — let’s recall that accidents do happen in Macao, with or without depressive subjects!
Published in Macau Daily Times on November 2, 2018
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