"I would say this again, Legislative Council will never be a rubber stamp," said Leung Chun-ying, former Chief Executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).
China's National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, approved improvements to the Hong Kong election system, encouraging "patriots governing Hong Kong" in the Executive and Legislative branches.
Leung Chun-ying shared his insights in recent interview with CGTN Host Tian Wei.
He pointed out that the Hong Kong people are "miles apart" from the possibility of letting the Legislative Council become "a rubber stamp." However, there are still some who wonder whether Legislative Council still function as it used to be. Responding to those doubts, he explained said the overriding principle is the governing bodies of Hong Kong must be in the hands of patriots, because it is the norm in all countries and societies of the world.
He added that in the past couple of years, people have seen acts of disloyalty. For example, members of the Election Committee and Legislative Council, even the members of the district council were running off to Washington, D.C., asking the U.S. government to sanction Hong Kong.
He highlighted that it was not just one time, but several times during 2019 and these people should not be allowed to sit on the election committee or to be part of the legislature. In terms of the possible new makeup of the people in the election committee, some say it might be very different directions of political tendency compared to the earlier.
Leung disproves with taking filibustering as an example. When he served as chief executive of the HKSAR a few years ago, he proposed the legislature created two new bureaus - the cultural bureau and the innovation and technology bureau.
"You know what happened?" asked Leung, "Those two bureaus, which are not politically sensitive, were delayed by two and half years because of lengthy filibustering. And that was just one of the examples."
Leung pointed out that politics is always a matter of fine balance. Patriots are necessary and different voices are also needed, Hong Kong is going to continue as a pluralistic society.
"It's very interesting to note the reaction of the opposition. And there is a possibility, the largest and oldest political party in the opposition, the Democratic Party, will not boycott the new function of election committee. And they will actually join in future LegCo elections," he said.
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