With both politics and the city badly managed, does HK need a Mayor?
| Jul 14, 2014
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The “mayor” solution has been proposed in various discussions by ourselves and others—and it is certainly an option for addressing the exhausting distraction of constitutional and political arrangements which has diverted much energy from our senior leadership since 1982.
This diversion of energy is the reason many government departments are operating under outdated practices, guidelines and statutes, unable to get the support they need from the top for making changes, and the cross-bureau/cross-department coordination this involves.
Whether an acceptable and practical division of labor between the Chief Executive or Party Secretary, and the Chief Secretary or Mayor can be found is one question. Whether it is possible for Hong Kong to elect its Chief Secretary under the Basic Law is another.
There are other ways in which we can improve the efficiency of our government. Like any other city in the world, except for city states like Singapore and Monaco, we have a multilayered government. Many cities have three layers (city, province/state, country). We have only two. We know everything about the local layer: we know practically nothing about the operations of the national government in HK. The employees, titles, mandates, salaries, budgets, tasks, etc.—the Hong Kong community has no insight. This lack of transparency is abnormal and unhealthy. Also, the conventions covering the relationship (procedures, processes, institutions) are immature. In the run up to the handover and up to 2003, the convention was “hands-off.” Integration was a banned word.
So clearly, there is a need for a Chief Executive who is seen to work hard on developing the “one country, two systems” implementation. When it comes to business and sports, HK and China are not even two systems, but two countries. When it comes to politics, we are supposed to be one country. And much of every other aspect is somewhere in between. The process of dynamic integration will take a lot of energy, focus, and deliberation to resolve, to guide, and to communicate with both the community and sovereign powers.
At the same time, we need to run our city with the same flexibility and bravura as London and New York. Look at what London did in the run up to the Olympics—making the city legible, walkable and cycle-able. Or what Michael Bloomberg did under the heading “World Class Streets” and other programs, reinventing public space, traffic and transport. Changes like that can only be led by the top and from the top, unshackling every layer of the bureaucracy and motivating bureaucrats to embrace change. That will take a lot of energy, focus and communication with the community—this clearly requires a mayor.
Both demands are going to be with us for a long time. The gap between Hong Kong and the mainland, and the lack of well tested and mature arrangements, require dedication at least until 2047. If the job is done well, July 1 2047 will just be another day.
Can the Chief Executive do both? Maybe. Can the Chief Executive delegate the Mayor role to the CS? Maybe. Should we institutionalize the two roles? Maybe. But what we, the community, and our local and national government, need first to realize is that there are two mammoth tasks which have lacked attention for a long time, and which both now require superheroes to resolve. Only when we realize and discuss these openly and transparently can the work start. Your article “Forget [sic] the CE, get a Mayor” is a welcome and timely provocation.
By Paul Zimmerman
