If Hong Kong is to start the healing process, it needs a new leadership team. Beijing must make sure that Carrie Lam’s successor addresses protesters’ demands
What we saw in this historic district council election was not just the sweeping victory for the pan-democrats, it was the complete rejection of every established political body that refused to hear the people’s voice.
It is a victory for democracy.
It is also a clear message that Hongkongers cannot be told what to do by force, nor by corruption of the electoral process.
There isn’t and never was a “silent majority” that supported the government.
The healing process will be hard and must start with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and most of the Executive Council resigning immediately after apologising to the people of Hong Kong. This will need to be followed by Beijing heeding the popular call for change and making sure that Lam’s successor addresses the protesters’ four remaining demands.
And to Junius Ho Kwan-yu: karma strikes back!
A responsible leader would have resigned long ago
It is very difficult to see how Chief Executive Carrie Lam can now remain in power. Clearly the public holds her administration’s intransigence and arrogance responsible for the past five months of crisis. Her administration’s desperate attempt to sway voters with an improper and last-minute “Say ‘no’ to violence” call was a total failure.
The leader of most other civilised places would have resigned long ago. Puerto Rico, Bolivia and Lebanon are recent examples, and the mass protests there were not as huge or as sustained as here.
Even dictators like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania resigned or fled when the writing was on the wall. But Mrs Lam has clung to power only by the brutal tactics of the police, widely condemned here and internationally as thuggish and oppressive.
To cite one example from many, a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board, who lived in Hong Kong for 10 years, had choice words to describe our once-respected police force: behaving “like goons”.
During its more than 150 years as a British colony and 22 years with new masters in Beijing, the people of Hong Kong have often been discontented with, and had complaints about, the territory’s appointed leaders. But only now has the population massively turned against them.
The basic, even if passive, consent of the governed – rather than any mandate from some distant capital – is what makes a regime legitimate.
Mrs Lam and every member of the Executive Council should, therefore, take responsibility, exhibit some honour and resign, so that the terrible damage they have brought on the city can begin to be repaired.
If not, China should appoint an interim leader or announce a snap election to restore faith and trust in the local government.
Carrie Lam cannot just carry on
The passion displayed by voters who turned out in massive numbers on November 24 was a shared belief in the future of Hong Kong; it was not a validation of the anarchy that those who oppose Beijing may think it was.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam must resign, as should several members of her Executive Council. Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah should be the first head to roll; her contempt for the law and her ability to be conveniently absent for major legal decisions is completely unacceptable.
Mark Peaker, The Peak
Election turnout shows Hongkongers care
I’ve voted in each election since I became a permanent resident over five years ago, and in the past I was in and out of the polling station in five minutes.
On Sunday, it took me more than 45 minutes from the time I joined the queue outside until I left. Let no one be in any doubt – Hongkongers care. Hongkongers want their voices to be heard. Hongkongers want to have a say in their future.