tim's experiment

There are times when the government has what we used to call a credibility gap. Not everything it says is easy to believe. But the explanation given for the abolition of by-elections floated over a credibility Grand Canyon. I suppose the luckless spokesperson who was put up to say that the government was abolishing by-elections so that the people’s will might prevail had no choice in the matter. He didn’t look as if he believed it and I didn’t either.

The proposal is that instead of holding a by-election the government will simply appoint the loser who collected the most votes in the last election. Clearly this has nothing to do with reflecting the people’s will. If we wished to preserve the election result we would appoint the person next on the list behind the legislator who has died, resigned, or whatever. But of course the People’s Will has nothing to do with it. Nor despite the helpful suggestion from the TVB reporter covering the matter, is this anything to do with the allaged cost of the multiple by-elections which were Not A Referendum, according to the Comrades. I thought the figure given for this was grossly exaqggerated. Anyway our government is not short of money.

What was bothering them, clearly, is the discovery that if a legislator dies, resigns, falls under a bus, is jaled for having an illegal structure on his rooftop or whatever, then the resulting by-election is in effect run on a first-past-the-post basis. There is only one seat on offer, so there is no room for the elaborate electoral subterfuges adopted to compensate for the low levels of support enjoyed by the DAB. Every time the democratic camp will win, unless they contrive something suicidal like running two candidates against each other.  When Anson Chan prevailed over Regina Ip in a by-election this could be put down to personal factors. Ms Chan was famous and Ms Ip had a controversial history. But in the by-elections which were Not A Referendum all the democrats, including the ones you had never heard of, effortlessly prevailed. So this will happen all the time.

Not only does this mean that every time there is a by-election the government and — indirectly — the Comrades will be humiliated. It also means that if the legislators who disappear happen to be government supporters then its automatic majority in the chamber will gradually shrink. And we can’t have that, can we? No such perils attend by-elections in the Functional Constituencies so by-elections there will continue. What a give-away.