Nury Vittachi

Opinion | Best thing about Hong Kong’s electoral reforms? They strike a blow against crony capitalism

Tycoons’ share of Election Committee seats has shrunk while many new grass-roots candidates have emerged, including farmers, fishermen and a railway worker. It’s all part of China’s reforms to curb the rich and address inequality

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A government banner promoting electoral changes outside Maple Street playground at Sham Shui Po on March 31. The electoral reform process is clearly intended to remove the adverse effects of crony capitalism. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Nury Vittachi

Published: 8:30am, 16 Sep 2021

The conventional wisdom is that the Hong Kong people have been totally disenfranchised in their own city and the wealthy elite from Beijing are in control. But a closer look tells a very different story.

For a start, it’s certainly not the case that the same old pro-Beijing voices are taking over the electoral process in Hong Kong. About 70 per cent of the 1,247 candidates for the city’s revised Election Committee are new faces, and they are Hongkongers, not northerly folk who have jetted in from over the border.

But they are all people who have agreed to pledge an oath of allegiance and follow the Basic Law! That makes them … loyalists! Critics say this, as if pledging loyalty to one’s constitution is an outrageous requirement, rather than the default for people taking part in politics around the world.

Australians, for example, cannot take their seats in parliament before swearing allegiance to an elderly lady on the other side of the planet. And she’s not even Australian!

That’s not to say that the several hundred new faces in Hong Kong’s Election Committee are guaranteed to be model citizens. Like any large group of people, there will be good ones and bad ones. And people who have cheered on a “burn together” campaign that saw many MTR stations attacked will not be in the running: that’s inevitable.

05:10

Hong Kong's revamped electoral system bolsters pro-Beijing influence in key decision-making bodies

Looking down the list of people, and the decisions made in fine-tuning the process, it’s interesting to see a very clear theme to the electoral reform process – one that most commentators have missed. The people who wrote it clearly intend to remove the adverse effects of crony capitalism.