CE slams opposition for voting strategy

Hong Kong’s leaders have questioned the opposition camp’s voting strategy in which they pledged to vote for “the most popular candidate” in the upcoming Chief Executive election on Sunday.

These leaders called the opposition’s tactics “hypocritical” and urged them to explain.

The issue appeared when “pan-democrats” vowed earlier this month to give all their 325 votes en-bloc to the candidate who enjoyed the highest support in major opinion polls.

Among the first to query this was CE Leung Chun-ying as he had been the most popular candidate in the previous CE election five years ago, according to opinion polls at the time.

Leung questioned on Friday why the “pan-democrats” did not vote for him in 2012 if they only wanted someone who had the best poll results.

“I was the most popular among the three candidates in the last election, but the ‘pandemocrats’ didn’t vote for me,” Leung queried. “Why were the ‘pan-democrats’ not ‘all in’ for me five years ago? They should explain.”

He stressed that an Election Committee member should not just focus on a candidate’s ratings in polls. One should take an overall look at the prospects, ideas, policies, measures and capability to implement those policies and measures, Leung said.

Veteran Hong Kong political analyst Song Sio-chong agreed with Leung.

He said the “pan-democrats” showed their hypocrisy with this voting strategy. “If they care about people’s opinion that much, they should have voted for Leung in 2012 based on the logic,” Song said.

Thus he believed the move was more an excuse to continue their confrontation with the central government’s authority by picking candidates who would like to work for their interests.

Head of the Centre for Economic Development at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Francis Lui Ting-ming echoed Song’s observation.

He noted that “pan-democrats” were too eager to be king makers. Some factions had explicitly discredited another CE hopeful, former chief secretary for administration Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

This may backfire on them, only serving to help Lam win more trust from the central government, Lui said.

Also competing for the city’s top job is retired judge Woo Kwok-hing.

Why were the ‘pan-democrats’ not ‘all in’ for me five years ago?” Leung Chun-ying, Chief Executive