While the jury is still out on whether those senior government officials and lawmakers who attended a coronavirus-struck birthday party on Monday have breached any anti-pandemic rules, the mere revelation that they were among the 180 plus party goers has triggered an immediate public outrage, notwithstanding the fact that they have apologized to the public for their behavior without hesitance.
Understandably, the public did not give them the benefit of the doubt. This is because officeholders, especially the top brass, must be seen to be whiter than white. This widely accepted notion is especially true of Hong Kong, a society divided by confrontational politics over recent years, a portion of whose members are still prone to nitpicking the government or looking for reasons–or just excuses—to assail the government as they are still struggling with their remnant fury/frustration over their failure to advance their political ideas or agendas.
In organizing or participating in Monday’s grand birthday party amid a looming fifth wave of COVID-19 outbreak, the dozens of officials and lawmakers failed to demonstrate the quality of “political agility”, as well as that of prudence, forethoughtfulness or even common sense
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The blunder those officeholders made must have also let the central government down. In a meeting with some LegCo members in Shenzhen recently, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, particularized “five expectations” for the newly sworn-in legislators, the core of which is essentially the expectation for them to be “high-caliber administrators” equipped with “political integrity”, “political agility” and various necessary abilities—aside from being patriotic, of course. Those “five expectations” understandably apply to all officeholders, particularly those in the decision-making echelons of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.
In organizing or participating in Monday’s grand birthday party amid a looming fifth wave of COVID-19 outbreak, the dozens of officials and lawmakers failed to demonstrate the quality of “political agility”, as well as that of prudence, forethoughtfulness or even common sense.
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Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has rightly ordered a probe into the conduct of those party goers to see whether any anti-pandemic rule has been breached and any enforcement action needs to be taken. It is required by both the equality principle and the imperative to prevent further blunders, as well as for the sake of good governance. After all, as an old Chinese saying goes, “a small termite hole can cause the collapse of a big dyke”.
Whatever the results of the probe and the subsequent actions are; officeholders who are sincere in serving the interest of Hong Kong people should learn a lesson from this blunder.