Jasper Tsang and allies will put forward policy ideas even before he launches think tank
TONY CHEUNG AND GARY CHEUNG
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 27 August, 2015, 2:58am
UPDATED : Thursday, 27 August, 2015, 2:58am
Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang
Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing and his allies will come up with a policy blueprint for the city next summer and recommend it to candidates contesting the chief executive election in 2017.
The Beijing-friendly heavyweight is confident there will be no lack of interest in the project as Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying is likely to face challengers if he seeks a second term two years down the road.
The progress of fundraising for the project had been "quite good", he said, when asked if the campaign was hindered by expectations of Leung's all-but-certain candidacy.
"Are there people who don't want the chief executive to win another term? Are there people who are actually finding people to challenge the serving chief executive?" he asked. "These people will need help … but I am not saying I am helping people to challenge the chief executive."
In recent weeks, Tsang has been more vocal about the city's leadership - a shift in attitude that commentators see as indicating he is at odds with Leung.
His team is conducting the project under the name of the Policy Research Institute, of which he is a vice-chairman, even before he realises plans to set up an advocacy think tank after retiring from the Legislative Council in July next year.
In an interview with the Post, Tsang said that while his think tank plan was still on course, he and his friends had decided the policy research must start now.
"[We hope] at least one candidate will adopt our recommendations as his or her manifesto, otherwise nobody will pay attention to us [until 2017] … So we have to hit the ground running."
The institute was a channel through which they could raise funds specifically for this project and to hire staff, he said.
"We hope to form teams to conduct research on different [policy] aspects, organise seminars and … put together a set of coherent political visions and policy recommendations."
Tsang, who has ruled out running for the top job himself, stressed it was not a "kingmaker project".
"We are not supporting anyone in particular," he said. In fact, it was possible for individual candidates to select different policy recommendations for their election platforms instead of just one person adopting the blueprint as a whole, he added.
"If [Leung Chun-ying] considers it helpful, he can use it too. There's no problem with that."
Last month, Tsang hit out at "incredibly stupid" government officials for spreading unfounded rumours that the sudden replacement of two ministers - including his younger brother Tsang Tak-sing - was due to their unsatisfactory performances.
Asked if his critical comments would stop Leung from adopting his team's recommendations, Jasper Tsang said: "I don't think there is conflict between us … If he is clever and sees our paper as something good, he would not refuse to adopt it simply because I said something he did not like."
Tsang said Leung was unlikely to go uncontested before the 1,200-strong Election Committee. "I believe in a few months' time, those interested [in the top job] will start to show activities of some sort," he said.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1852911/legco-president-jasper-tsang-work-policy-blueprint-hong-kong
