Category: Local politics
In photos, the excitement of election day 2015
As of 3.30pm, just under 23% of Islands district voters, or 60,877 people, had cast their vote. Here’s how the election has unfolded so far:
Election action, Tong Fuk
Election 2015 preview
Whoever said the internet has changed politics never visited Lantau. The battle for Hong Kong’s biggest electoral district is strictly analogue. No Twitter wars here. Issues and platforms are less important in Lantau’s murky politics than patronage, clan loyalties and personal feuds.
The island rural committees dominate both local politics and the Island District Council (IDC). Although the government no longer appoints councillors, rural committee heads are automatically granted seats. As well as the ten elected members the Islands Council will have eight ex officio members from the rural committees – pretty much a lock.
Randy Yu, the rural committee candidate for Lantau and, if he wins, the likely next IDC chairman, should also be a lock. But the retirement of the unlamented Rainbow Wong,the development controversies and the Occupy fallout have made this contest interesting. Continue reading
Green candidate: Clara Tam
This is the second Q&A with a Lantau District Council candidate.
Clara Tam (candidate no. 4) stands out in the race as the only conservation candidate. In Lantau terms that means she is the only one opposed to the government’s development programme – including Shek Kwu Chau incinerator, the round-island highway and the East Lantau Metropolis. She advocates a green approach emphasising eco-tourism, community participation and greater transparency.
Please introduce yourself: name, age, occupation and education experience, experience in the community, political affiliation, connection to Lantau.
I’m Clara Tam Sau Ngor, 46 years old female and third-generation born and raised in Mui Wo, Lantau. The Tams have made Mui Wo our home for 60 years since my grandpa and dad started Yau Lee Transportation Company, a kaito (cargo boat) family business on the island. Most of the people in Mui Wo know our family. Like most of the kids here, I went to Lik Hang kindergarten and Mui Wo School. Continue reading
Dissing Amy
A reminder that the District Council election is about more than just local politics. Today’s SCMP has run this news-free story boosting Amy Yung’s opponent in Discovery Bay.
Amy is your quintessential conscientious elected representative. She has a 100% attendance record this year in both council and committee meetings. For most of the past four years she has been the only voice of democracy and conservation in the Islands District Council. Only since the election of Peter Yu, another Civic Party representative, 18 months ago has she had someone to second her motions.
The establishment candidate: Randy Yu
This is the first of our Q&As with candidates standing for Lantau in the coming District Council election. Each will be asked the same ten questions and the answers published in full (the original in Chinese, the English edited slightly for length).
Randy Yu (candidate no. 1) is the establishment candidate, taking the place of the retiring Rainbow Wong. He is already an appointed Islands District Council member, but this is his first tilt at an election.
Yu is a Tai O native and has the backing of all four Lantau rural committees – Mui Wo, Tai O, Tung Chung and South Lantau. He also enjoys the support of Uncle Fat himself – the long-time Heung Yee Kuk chairman and kingmaker Lau Wong-fat is his father-in-law. His responses are below.
Election time. Welcome to District Council world
Hong Kong’s 18 District Councils are not exactly a model of democratic accountability. They are a branch of the Home Affairs Bureau with no power to pass laws or raise revenue, and the coming poll is the first in which all members will be directly elected. But when it comes to community politics they are the only game in town.
Historically, they grew out of the neighbourhood support groups known as kaifong associations (街坊會) that the British formed back in 1949 (this wiki traces their tortuous history). Continue reading
Rainbow Wong – buffoon or fraud?
Depending on whether you ask the police or someone who can actually count, between 500 and 2000 people turned out for last Sunday’s protest against the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator in Central.
But no matter how you reckon it, one person who failed to turn up was Lantau District Councillor Rainbow Wong.
Which is odd because four months ago he was reelected on a platform explicitly opposing the project.
What he said then was: “The government should advocate sorting of household waste instead of building an incinerator on Shek Kwu Chau.” (In the Chinese version he states he is “opposed to the building of the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator.)
Since then Rainbow seems to have had second thoughts. Or, given his previous support for the incinerator, third thoughts.
At last Monday’s District Council meeting, he declined to speak on the matter, complaining he was unprepared because the paper fellow councillor Amy Yung had given him were in English (yet strangely he was prepared enough to take a position in his platform).
To clarify the matter, I wrote to Rainbow’s office last Tuesday. Evidently still suffering from the same bout of shyness he hasn’t yet got back to me.
So the jury is still out on whether he has been caught unawares by his own election platform, or if he has just perpetrated a cheap fraud on the voters.
Those with slightly longer memories recall that before he was against Shek Kwu Chau, Rainbow was all for it.
So Rainbow, if you’re reading this… well OK, you can’t! But if you can get someone to translate, let us know if you want Lantau voters to view you as a buffoon or fraud.
Lantau Confidential 