Vera Stanton
I’m an ex-pat Kiwi who spent 14 years in Hong Kong before recently relocating to Europe. I witnessed a dramatic change in the city during this time, especially since the 2019 pro-democracy protests. Many residents, like myself, have been driven out of Hong Kong by China’s political encroachment and the resulting crackdown on personal freedoms in the city.’
On Sunday 8 May Hong Kong’s Orwellian election resulted in the confirmation of Beijing’s one and only candidate – John Lee Ka-Chiu – as the city’s new Chief Executive. The outcome did not come as a surprise to anybody remotely attentive to Hong Kong and China politics.
John Lee is a former police officer and Security Chief who has never held a government position outside the police force or security bureau. Lee oversaw the violent crackdown on the 2019 pro-democracy protests and was a staunch supporter of the National Security Law. I have previously written on the deeply worrying trend of Beijing’s installation of hardliners inside Hong Kong, with Lee being just the latest in this series of appointments.
If the deeply unpopular incumbent Chief Executive Carrie Lam is the devil you know, then Lee is certainly the devil you don’t. John Lee was a name unfamiliar to most Hong Kongers until the 2019 crackdown. He has been described by one exiled pro-democratic legislator as a script-reader without his own personality, ideas or words, “…just a machine executing orders, without emotions”.
Once Lee was confirmed as the sole candidate, the overhauled ‘patriots only’ electoral process commenced, revealing one absurdity after another. Lee’s election campaign was an expensive and unnecessary spectacle. It was The Emperor’s New Clothes of elections, with Beijing’s quislings not daring to admit that the Emperor was stark naked.
As Beijing’s preferred candidate, Lee had absolutely no opponents in an election that various mainstream media outlets optimistically (or disingenuously) described as a ‘race’. The lack of opposing candidates did not deter the media, with most news outlets still insisting on calling it something that it was clearly not.
Despite the predetermined outcome, Lee campaigned for the votes of a 1424-strong hand-picked ‘patriots’ election committee, in a show of pointless political theatrics that cost taxpayers over HKD$300 million.
The cherry on top of this proverbial steaming pile of an election process, was the fact that last year Lee’s election committee was vetted by none other than – yes, you guessed it – John Lee himself.
Lee ran on a platform of a ‘results-oriented’ approach, although the specifics of the results to which he referred were not clearly articulated. One could argue that many demagogues and dictators have achieved ‘results’, however dubious their legacies.
Lee’s ham-fisted campaign slogan ‘We and Us, A New Chapter Together’ drew the mirth and ire of many English-literate residents. Predictably, rather than admit error, Lee defended his absurd tagline, claiming it was not incorrect but merely ‘inclusive’. Inclusivity was certainly an interesting choice of theme for the campaign, given that only 0.02 per cent of the population were allowed to vote.
In an absolute nail-biting ballot count, which took all of 23 minutes to complete, Lee secured an astonishing 99.6 per cent of the vote – only 0.4 per cent less than Kim Jong-Un in the 2014 North Korean elections and Saddam Hussien in the 2002 Iraqi presidential referendum.
Cue the obscene fawning of China’s state media, who tied themselves in knots attempting to praise the sham elections. English-language mouthpiece China Daily outdid themselves, earnestly describing Lee’s election as a ‘ray of hope’ and a ‘democratic milestone’ without a hint of irony.
The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office lauded the one-horse election, calling it ‘Democracy with Hong Kong characteristics’. If by “Hong Kong characteristics” they meant the total rejection of anything remotely democratic throughout the entire process, then Hong Kong’s new “democracy” surely rivals that of North Korea.
Following his election, Lee was publicly congratulated for his embarrassingly hollow victory by servile corporations such as Swire (Cathay Pacific’s principal shareholder), Standard Chartered, HSBC, PwC, Deloitte and KPMG, together with Hong Kong’s billionaire tycoon families. Meanwhile, the G7 and EU countries officially expressed their ‘grave concern over the erosion of democratic elements of the Special Administrative Region’s electoral system’.
In a twist of unintended irony, Hong Kong’s election day also saw a record number of domestic workers from the Philippines lined up on the streets of Hong Kong to exercise their political rights and cast their votes in the Philippines’ presidential elections. The voters, mostly women, make up some of the 250,000-plus foreign domestic workers resident in Hong Kong.
Many of the Filipina voters enthusiastically campaigned and voted for the broadly popular candidate and Marcos dynasty heir, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. Marcos teamed up with VP candidate Sara Duterte – daughter of controversial incumbent President Ramos Duterte. The pair won in a landslide victory.
One election was a barely concealed sham to install a predetermined and uncontested candidate, while the other demonstrated equal democratic rights for all citizens – even if they did choose to vote for the son of a corrupt dictator.
It remains to be seen if Marcos can demonstrate to the people of the Philippines that he can break away from his father’s legacy. On the other hand, John Lee doesn’t need to prove anything to the ordinary people that he will lead, since he is only answerable to Beijing. He has no experience working for the good of the people of Hong Kong, and, furthermore, no impetus to start doing so now.