Africa-Press – Cape verde. Portuguese analysts who follow political life in Macau told Lusa that the current chief executive of the Chinese administrative region, Ho Iat Seng, “is preparing” to run again, despite criticism of his governance.
“It seems he is preparing to run. A businessman [Jorge Chiang] also appeared, who wanted [to run], but perhaps he only appeared so he [Ho Iat Seng] could reinforce his candidacy,” said Cátia Miriam Costa, a researcher at the Center for International Studies at ISCTE-IUL (CEI/ISCTE-IUL) and a specialist in foreign policy issues in China and Macau.
Jorge Tavares da Silva, a professor at the University of Beira Interior and a specialist in Chinese foreign policy, Macau and the New Silk Road, drew attention to the “disappearance” for “a few weeks” of Ho Iat Seng.
“The chief executive has been missing for a few weeks now, he extended his vacation, which leads us to assume that he will be in negotiations,” he said.
“It gives the impression that he is preparing all the informal dynamics behind the scenes – which shows that [his candidacy] may not be so consensual – so that later, in the solemn act, everything will already be decided”, he added.
“There is a big debate there,” Cátia Costa also stressed. “When [Ho Iat Seng] stands, he will have to do the math and know if he can win, that is, what percentage of those 400 voters [members of the Chief Executive Electoral Committee (CECE) of Macau] will vote for him. Without that, it won’t go ahead,” added the researcher.
More than 6,200 voters represented by 576 legal entities will elect their representatives on the CECE this Sunday, which includes 400 members from four sectors of society, and will elect from October 11 the future leader of the Macau Government for the next five years, who will have to be formally appointed by the Chinese central government, in accordance with the territory’s ‘mini Constitution’, the Basic Law, and the respective electoral law.
As with the Chinese Communist Party, “before the vote, there is a big dispute. I often tell my students: ‘when you see all the little cards raised in a plenary vote in contemporary China, many have fallen along the way’”, explained the CEI/ISCTE-IUL researcher.
Ho Iat Seng’s two predecessors – Edmundo Ho and Fernando Chui Sai on – both served two terms, but Portuguese researchers admit that Ho Iat Seng is coming to the end of his first term in office under different political conditions.
“Ho Iat Seng faced a period of some opposition, precisely because people thought he was not doing his best. Now, we also have to look at the context of governance he had,” said Cátia Costa in perspective.
“The assessment of Ho Iat Seng’s governance is very difficult”, “we are analyzing a particularly difficult period, in which China was closed for 3 years” due to Covid, and this assessment concerns “a territory that is very dependent on external flows, it is very exposed”, he said.
“It is clear that we are not evaluating government action under normal conditions,” the researcher stressed.
On the other hand, the leader of the territory’s executive is required to have a special “competence”, which involves being able to “harmonize Beijing’s expectations with local expectations, which are fundamental, later, in the expression of the vote that this great commission [CECE] will make”, said Cátia Costa.
This circumstance becomes more relevant, according to the ISEG professor, if we consider the fact that Ho Iat Seng’s period of governance coincided with a “situation of great dissatisfaction” in Hong Kong, and “the truth is that Macau absorbed many shock waves from” the neighboring territory.
“It was a particularly adverse and difficult context. The people who are going to elect him probably had the opportunity to confirm whether there is any change, any greater commitment [that Ho Iat Seng has made] in relation to any of these major issues, or even any predisposition to change the course that has been taken in the governance of the territory”, predicted Cátia Miriam Costa
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