FEIGN FOR HONG KONG CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Part 3 of Larry Feign's speech to theHong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club on 30 April 2004:
Okay, let's face reality. A candidate for CE has to be approved by Beijing. And to be frank, there is no one more deserving of endorsement by the Politburo than myself. If you look into my personal history you'll find - and I'm not making up a word of this - back in 1967 I declared myself a communist. More specifically I was a Maoist. I had my copy of the Little Red Book, and raised hell in my high school. Compare me to Tung Chee-Hwa; when was he ever a Party member? What was my likely rival Henry Tang doing in 1967? Certainly not organizing the masses! DAB take note: I am one of you!
Now, Beijing knows it made a mistake last time by appointing a rich, pampered businessman's son to the job. I'm proud to say that my father was never in business. So, me or Henry Tang? The choice is obvious!
MY PLATFORM The biggest issue facing us at the moment is of course the contentious matter of political reform. We need a solution that is acceptable to all parties. Now, Beijing hates the idea of electing the CE by universal suffrage. But most people here think the Selection Committee method is grossly unfair. Meanwhile, I've never heard a complaint from either side that the Miss Hong Kong pageant is unfair. So, I'll go up in a swimsuit contest against Gordon Wu any day. The judges-I mean selection committee-will be made up of the people most respected by Hong Kong society: that is, Leon Lai, Faye Wong, Andy Lau, Fei Fei, and 796 other carefully auditioned pop megastars and TV starlets. Add a few dance numbers, televise the whole thing, get sponsors to pay for it, and the CE election will help to pay off the budget deficit as well. As for the Legislative Council, the NPC has just reinterpreted the words "gradual and orderly progress" toward democracy to really mean "no" progress. Doesn't that remind you of your kids? Kids, whenever you say "no", they reinterpret it to mean "yes". But while the proportions of legitimately and illegitimately elected (that is, Functional Constituency) members in 2007 will remain 50-50, they did leave open the possibility of expanding the number of seats in Legco. So I propose expanding the Legco from the current 60 to 60,000 members. Hong Kong will be divided into 30,000 geographical constituencies, approximately one for each residential high rise. We'll follow the directive of the NPC to make the Legco more representative of all the various interests in Hong Kong, by adding 29,970 new functional constituencies. This way everyone will have a say. After all, don't cat lovers deserve a voice? We'll have FCs for surly waiters, palm readers, earwax spoon hawkers, and other legitimate professional groups. Be prepared for spirited debates between the Carlsberg drinkers' representative and his opponent from the San Miguel consituency. Meetings will be held as usual on Wednesdays, but obviously we can't fit them in the Legco building. The nearest available place is the Happy Valley Race Course, though they have race meetings on Wednesdays. So Legco meetings will occur inbetween races. The Jockey Club can take bets on the voting results of legislative motions.
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