A non-event that I'm still going to give my two cents about!

  

Hong Kong cartoonist vawongsir take on 

today's Chief Executive "selection"

 

Something happened in Wan Chai this morning that has received international press coverage but feels pretty meaningless to many people in Hong Kong.  It involved John Lee, the 64-year-old ex-police chief who was Security Secretary back in 2019, who subsequently went on to be appointed Chief Secretary in Carrie Lam's cabinet last summer and now has been anointed as her successor as Chief Executive of Hong Kong.  

Officially, what took place today was a "small circle" "election".  By "small circle", I mean that only a very small number of people were given a vote in the proceedings: 1,461 to be exact; and vetted last year by the then Chief Secretary, who turned out to be the "contest"'s sole candidate.  Yes, you read it right: John Lee "ran" unopposed for Chief Executive; and, for some reason, instead of just declaring victory straight away or at the end of the nomination period, the powers that be went ahead and staged an "election" all the same -- with an allocated (and undoubtedly fully utilized) budget of HK$228 million more than 7,000 police officers (i.e., more than four times the number of this "contest"'s eligible voters) deployed today to ensure that the "election" would go as planned!

 

In view of this not being a usual "election" in so many ways, the media struggled to figure out how to actually bill today's proceedings (with the New York Times coming straight out and describing it as a "rubber-stamp election".  Then we had the (pro-Beijing) media outlets trying in vain to insert some "tension" into the "race"; with such as the South China Morning Post's attempts to do so being the subject of much ridicule in recent weeks.   

 

Two and a half hours this morning were allocated to the casting of the votes for Chief Executive.  It took even less time to get the votes counted and have John Lee declared the winner of the "contest".  Interestingly, he actually didn't get all 1,461 of the votes (despite his having pre-vetted the voters).  For some reason or other, 33 of the voters didn't turn up to cast their ballots, four voters casted blank votes and eight voters had the temerity to vote against John Lee! 

John Lee thus ended up with "only" 99% of the total votes rather than the 100% that the likes of Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un are used to getting.  In the grand scheme of things, this doesn't matter one bit since, after getting just one vote, the one horse in the "race"'s victory was already assured.

Numerologists and those who delight in irony will undoubtedly enjoy the following finding though: John Lee's 1,416 votes can be equated as 689 (the number of votes Leung Chun-ying received in 2012 to become Chief Executive) + 777 (the number of votes Carrie Lam got in 2017) - 50 (the number of years that Hong Kong was supposed to be ruled under "One country, two systems").  

 

At the same time, I don't think "1416" will replace the nickname John Lee already has been saddled with: Pika-chiu (inspired by his Chinese personal name of Ka-chiu)!  Sounds kinda cuddly, right?  But, then, Carrie Lam's also known as Piglet (as well as 777) and Xi Jinping as Xinnie the Pooh -- and they're by no means thought of as cuddly or lovable at all!  And, if truth be told, John Lee seems scarier to me than Carrie Lam.  

In an attempt to charm though, John Lee's "victory speech" today included the following rather strange -- or, at least, innane -- line: "Today is also Mother’s Day, Buddha’s Birthday and World Smile Day... So we can all very happily welcome such a historical day."  He also called his wife, Janet Lam, to the stage and presented her with a bouquet of flowers that someone else had given him!

 

He also (mistakenly) wished everyone "Happy Christmas" today. I guess it's a sign that John Lee, who only recently revealed that he's Catholic (like Carrie Lam and Hong Kong's second executive, Donald Tsang) felt that Christmas had arrived (early) for him today -- though some might be inclined to think that Carrie Lam is bequeathing him a poisoned chalice rather than bestowing upon him a great gift!