It is time to feel some sympathy for Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. Five years ago, I wrote that he was a better candidate than Henry Tang Ying-yen, even before Tang was impaled on his illegal structure. Leung, judging from his manifesto, held out more prospect of change than the son of a textile magnate known for his wine-tasting skills. Reading Leung’s , one is struck not so much by his sense of achievement, nor even the long list of programmes he would have put in place had he been allowed a second term. It is the realisation that little has been achieved despite many good intentions and buoyant revenues. For that, one can partly blame his own personality, neither a politician who could engage the public nor a networker who could both make friends and twist arms to get things done. Some blame can rest with a fractious legislature, with the vested interests of functional legislators adding to obstruction by the filibustering pan-democrats. But, as big a problem as all these combined has been a bureaucracy putting off decisions and unwilling to present the chief executive with options that challenge entrenched interests. Yet the two main players in this slothful system are now the. Leung’s last address was curiously bloodless. It was as though he felt that he had been let down by those (in Beijing) whom he had most tried to please. They had dropped him because his devotion to “one country”, his tough stance against localists, had so alienated Hongkongers that he had become dispensable. Instead of a rousing farewell or a heartfelt vision for the future, the best he could do was make a long list of mostly modest advances in housing, health and transport under his watch. It did not address deep discontent but was at least unprovocative.
