Letters | Hong Kong protests: Carrie Lam has failed to govern and should resign

The chief executive triggered the protest crisis with her introduction of the hated extradition bill, failed to empathise with the reasonable demands of the people and did not manage to reassure Beijing about Hong Kong. She has to go

Carrie Lam

Letters

Published: 7:30am, 28 Sep 2019

Why you can trust SCMP

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor may be right to say that Hong Kong is staring down an abyss. She could well blame the protesters if Hong Kong should indeed fall into the chasm. But could she honestly say she has done everything she could to stop the fall?

Sad to say, but Mrs Lam has failed the people of Hong Kong, whom she had sworn to serve. She misjudged public sentiment and proposed the failed extradition bill. She then failed to hear the pleas of the people to launch an independent inquiry into the protest clashes, among other demands – not when one million people marched in protest, not even after double that number did.

Aside from a formal withdrawal of the bill, the request for an independent inquiry is perhaps the most reasonable of the protesters’ demands. If Mrs Lam had more political wisdom, she would have agreed to the inquiry, making it as wide as possible by investigating all sides, and giving it ample time to complete its job. She could have even asked that the commission make a recommendation on the question of prosecution and amnesty – one of the demands of protesters. Alas, she failed to see this opportunity.

Lam failed to empathise with the protesters’ despair and hear their cries for help. She failed to see that being magnanimous is not a weakness.

She failed to reassure authorities in Beijing that the vast majority of Hong Kong folk are reasonable and peace-loving. And that we are not anti-China and have no wish to seek to break away; we simply want to preserve the status quo and see “one country, two systems” succeed.

She has failed to persuade the central government to give her more leeway to find a solution. It is clear she is now a lame duck – she is not allowed to do anything without first consulting her bosses in Beijing. And yet she has failed to be honest with the people of Hong Kong, choosing to hoodwink the people she is meant to protect. She remains the chief executive of Hong Kong in name only.

It is evident she no longer has the trust and confidence of the people of Hong Kong, and perhaps Beijing, too. Again, she has failed to see that she is a part of the problem and no longer a part of the solution. Sadly, there remains only one thing left for her to do: she has to leave.

If she truly loves Hong Kong and its people, she will see that this necessary sacrifice is in the public interest. Otherwise, she may one day ask herself if she did everything she could to avert disaster.

Kien Ng, Wan Chai

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