Unprecedented?
According to their comments, the “pro-democracy” forces garnered five of the 14 directly-elected seats.
Five?
Well, let’s check the facts, based on primary-school level arithmetic: Four groups widely seen as representing “pro-democracy” forces won a total of four seats on Sunday – civil service unionist Jose Coutinho’ New Hope group and three groups each headed by full-time political activists: veteran lawmaker Au Kam San’s New Democratic Macau Association, veteran legislator Ng Kuok Cheong’s Democratic Prosperous New Macau Association and newcomer Sulu Sou Ka Hou’s New Macau Progressives.
Au is a former member and Ng and Sou are current members of the New Macau Association (NMA), the city’s oldest “pro-democracy” group.
Consequently, on Sunday the “pro-democracy” camp won four of the 14 directly-elected seats up for grabs – unchanged from four and eight years ago. In 2013, Ng and Au each won a seat, while Coutinho and his running mate Leong Veng Chai both succeeded in their direct election bids. Leong failed to be re-elected on Sunday. In 2009, Coutinho won his group’s only seat while two groups headed by Ng and Au won a total of three seats (including Paul Chan Wai Chi who on Sunday failed to get elected as Sou’s running mate). Well, according to conventional arithmetic, 1+3=4!
Strangely enough, some commentators regard ex-journalist Agnes Lam Iok Fong, who on Sunday finally won a seat for her Civic Watch group after two failed attempts, as a member of the city’s “pro-democracy” camp. Lam reconfirmed to the local media on Monday that she regards herself as a “middle-of-the-road” lawmaker.
Interestingly enough, some local commentators and activists prefer the term “opened-minded” (“hoi meng” in Cantonese) to the ideology-laden term “pro-democracy”.
The point is that even in Macau the range of the “pro-democracy” groups is rather wide, comprising moderates (such as Au and Ng), radicals (such as “Street Fighter” Lee Kin Yun) and mavericks (such as “Captain Macau” Wong Wai Man).
One of the standard demands of the local “pro-democracy” camp is that all members of the Legislative Assembly be elected by popular vote. Well, this would require a major amendment to the Macau Basic Law, Article 68 of which states that “the majority of its [Legislative Assembly] members shall be elected”. As a realist, I don’t expect this to happen any time soon, if ever.
The rather skewed coverage of Sunday’s election by some Hong Kong and overseas media may be due to the deplorable fact that more and more reporters and academics are activists using journalism and science as a cover for achieving their political objectives.
In my modest opinion, journalism and activism are incompatible. While journalists are supposed to be objective in their reporting, activists are – rightfully – expected to be subjective in pursuing their aims.
Harald Brüning
