Kapok: Hong Kong and us

The recent debate over universal suffrage for the 2017 election of the Chief Executive in Hong Kong, and the much anticipated ruling made by the National People’s Congress (NPC) last Sunday over the issue have proven both fascinating and, rather unfortunately, extremely worrying.
Fascinating because the political awareness demonstrated by the Hong Kong citizenry at large has become a key feature of the distinct identity of our sister SAR. This was not originally “a given”, and it became salient only back in 2002-2003 over the debate regarding article 23 and the appending national security law with the SARS outbreak as a backdrop. Social movements and unrests of some significance have quite a long history in Hong Kong, but then the triggering causes clearly used to intertwine anti-colonial sentiments and mainly labor issues with China’s own turmoil of the time, as exemplified by the massive riots of the 1920s and 1960s. The vast demonstrations in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre in June 1989 were already encompassing a wider array of the population, but the scale of the mobilization was commensurate with the emotional shock felt by many because of the blood-stained character of the repression, and then genuine feelings of solidarity with the victims precipitated growing fears about the future of Hong Kong itself after 1997. The 2003 events mark a turning point as they took place after the handover to Chinese sovereignty and mainly gathered white-collar and professional segments of society, along with their families, and thus exhume the coming of age of what political scientists characterize as a “vibrant civil society”, targeting the government for being too weak in its commitment to uphold “a high degree of autonomy” for the SAR. Since then, the “civility” of society has grown both in strength and scope, whether one considers attendance to the June 4th vigil in Victoria Park, the youth-led Scholarism movement against patriotic education, the Occupy Central movement and of course the civil referendum of June 2014.
The worrying side derives palpably from the inflexible stance adopted by the central authorities, as the NPC ruling completely excludes popular initiatives by requiring candidates for the 2017 elections to be endorsed by a majority vote casts in a non-elected 1,200-member nominating committee, and furthermore limits the number of candidates to two or three nominees. Quite a stark contrast with the winning motion of the civil referendum that garnered the acquiescence of more than 330,000 people for a “three-track” proposal (public, nominating committee and parties) to put forward candidates! For Michael Davis, professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, this constitutes a major betrayal of the spirit and letter of both the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law as it subverts completely the commitment to universal suffrage. In a very strong opinion published in the South China Morning Post on September 3rd, Prof. Davis further argues that not only does this ruling undermine the rule of law, but also infringes international law as it contradicts the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Hong Kong is a signatory—article 25 of that Covenant provides every citizen the right “to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage… guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors—, and furthermore contradicts the aim, as voiced out by Deng Xiaoping himself, for Hong Kong people to “put their hearts at ease”. For all these reasons, Prof. Davis concludes—without any risk of being sacked—that “democrats in the Legislative Council have no reason to support a bill under these constraints”.
What is there for us when Article 47 of our Macao Basic Law unmistakably lacks a straightforward commitment to universal suffrage? Well, first, this acts as a reminder that Macao is also a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [see art. 40 in the 3rd section of the MBL], and thus, if we follow the UN Human Rights Committee that interpret the Covenant, that not only suffrage should be “universal and equal” but that “persons entitled to vote have a free choice of candidates”. And then, we have the statement of Li Fei, the deputy secretary general of the standing committee of the NPC sent to Hong Kong to explain the ruling: “Only one person [candidate] does not make an election, but too many is not proper either” [一個人就不是選舉，但多了也不合適]. This constitutes a prompt recall that elections are chiefly about building trust, and thus Mr Chui’s commitment to further develop democracy in Macao, as stated in his 2014 platform, appears more pressing than one would have initially expected.

Published in Macau Daily Times, September 5th 2014

Kapok: Contentious words

Let’s be clear, from a constitutional point of view there is nothing “illegal” in organizing an informal public consultation aka survey in the form of a mock referendum regarding the Chief Executive selection process. It is however legally “invalid”, as stated by both the Macao SAR government and the Central Government Liaison Office, as it has absolutely no binding effect in law. But is that what really matters?
In the words of the three organizers of this “civil referendum” or “civil society sponsored consultation”, the whole idea is to “give citizens an opportunity to experience the exercise of civil rights and civil liberty”. It is of course highly politically motivated, as this will take place right before the election of the Chief Executive in August, and results will be announced only after the highly probable reappointment of Chui Sai On for a second term. Of the two motions to be discussed, one will concern the possible election of the Chief Executive through universal suffrage in 2019, but the other is definitely targeted at the ongoing process, as this second motion could be either “Do you have confidence in the sole candidate in the Chief Executive Election 2014 [name of the candidate] to become the Chief Executive?” or “Which candidate in the Chief Executive Election 2014 do you favor as the Chief Executive?” In the eyes of the MSAR government, this political stunt is thus clearly seen as a provocation, and the “illegal” characterization can then be understood as a condemnation of a perceived attempt to discredit the official result by resorting to a non-legally binding substitutive method of designation.
Two elements of context have to be kept in mind. The fact that close to 800,000 people participated in a civil referendum at the end of June in Hong Kong to advocate a citizen initiative in the selection process for the candidates who will participate in the Chief Executive elections in 2017. The issue is to say: let’s not transform the promise of “universal suffrage” as enshrined in article 45 of the Hong Kong Basic Law into a meaningless one if the choice of candidates is not to be open. But then, the Hong Kong SAR government can legitimately claim that the sentence preceding that promise takes precedence: the method “shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress.” Yet, sponsored by the Occupy Central with Love and Peace, the Hong Kong civil referendum was only concerned with an election to come, and was commissioned to the Public Opinion Programme of The University of Hong Kong and the Centre for Social Policy Studies of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, thus giving it the “respectability” of both distance in time and academic grounding—can anybody imagine ANY university in Macao engaging in that kind of endeavor?
Well, there was one previously – a survey I ran on the election of the Chief Executive back in early 2009. We found that 51% of our respondents favored “suffrage universal” out of the 4 possible choices. No claim here in being legally binding, but then, neither does it contradict article 47 of the Macao Basic Law: “The Chief Executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region shall be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People’s Government.”
Ultimately, from an academic perspective, my questions are: why do like-minded civil groups in Macao have to resort to this kind of “political happening”? In plain English, why is the system so “stuck” that it does not allow for new forms of political participation to emerge? Isn’t it obvious that between the depiction of the 2012 political reform package as having “a positive impact on the maintenance of a stable political system and improved democratic elements in the constitution of Macao” (Macao Yearbook 2013) and the 20,000 people demonstrating on May 25th 2014 against a government-sponsored law regarding a (too) generous retirement scheme for senior officials, there is a growing discrepancy? What is really missing in the Basic Law is not the promise of universal suffrage but the duty to take into account “the actual situation” of Macao. Clearly, the principle of “one position, one candidate” that has been the rule since 2004, although not illegal, is not helping…

Published in Macau Daily Times, July 11th 2014