Tsang set to clinch HK leadership
By CNN's Marianne Bray
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Bureaucrat Donald Tsang appears to have clinched enough nominations to become Hong Kong's next leader in an election critics have called a charade.
On Wednesday Tsang told reporters as he filed his election papers that he had won 710 nominations from the 800-member group which chooses the territory's chief executive.
While the former British colony was promised a high level of autonomy for 50 years after it was handed over to China in 1997, the 6.9 million people who live in the city still don't get to choose their leader.
All Tsang had to do to claim the top spot was to win at least 700 nominations from the group of mostly pro-Beijing business and industry leaders. This would ensure potential rivals did not get the 100 votes they needed to contest the race, which was set for July 10.
"You can call it a farce; it's not an election in the way you know it, but that's Hong Kong, it's very sad," says Emily Lau, a former journalist and pro-democracy lawmaker.
Tsang, a bowtie-wearing civil servant who has worked in government for nearly four decades, looks set to lead Hong Kong for the next two years after the unpopular former leader Tung Chee Hwa quit in March, citing health reasons.
Many at the time said Tung, a former shipping tycoon, was pushed out by Beijing for what was widely perceived as mismanagement during his 8-year tenure. That included his handling of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, a proposed anti-succession bill and the deadly SARS epidemic.
While the 60-year-old Tsang worked as No. 2 during Tung's tenure, he has generally escaped criticism, and indeed is very popular among the people who live in this special administrative region on China's southern coast.
Polls show the devout Roman Catholic with the British title of "Sir" has the support of 76 percent of Hong Kongers.
"People think he is definitely better than Tung and they at least respect his track record as a longtime civil servant trained by the British," says Willy Lam, a Hong Kong-based China expert.
In recent years, Hong Kongers have made growing calls for political freedom, but more and more they are failing to see the rights they were promised under the "one country, two systems" emerge, and indeed have seen some slip away.
Observers have slammed the interpretations Beijing has made on Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, saying the "sloppy" rulings have damaged the law in this bustling entrepot, which is ranked the freest economy in the world.
Discontent with the government during Tung's tenure became so bad that the national holiday for Hong Kong's handover to China, July 1, has become a day of protest.
In 2003 and 2004, as many as half a million residents spilled out into the hot and humid streets of Causeway Bay and Wan Chai to call for more democracy and demand that Tung quit as the economy hit the skids.
But Hong Kong's real leaders in Beijing are worried that if they grant the city too much freedom, some of that could seep across the mainland's borders and infiltrate its 1.3 billion people.
"The Hu Jintao leadership is going out of its way to ensure that the 'seeds' of democracy in Hong Kong, if they exist that is, will not have any effect on China," says Lam.
"Hu also won't agree to speeding up the snail's pace of democratization in the Hong Kong SAR."
The biggest challenge for Tsang will be to say when Hong Kong will have full democracy, says Michael DeGolyer, from The Hong Kong Transition project.
Indeed, as many as 15 percent of people in Hong Kong say they don't want democracy at all, he says. The mini-constitution says universal suffrage is the "ultimate aim."
"They are very concerned that if they have direct elections, they could choose someone who could damage the prospects," says DeGolyer.
Indeed, some commentators have already expressed concern that democracy could mean a whittling away of one of the most competitive business hubs in the world.
Election officials will verify Tsang's endorsements and announce the results Thursday.
