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March 14, 2005
Why Two Years
After SJ Elsie Leung discovered on Sunday a “legislative intent” previously unheard of in Hong Kong and even unknown to the SAR government, everyone's been switching gears to agree with the future CE's two-year term, including the SAR government. Simon calls it Beijing's “persuasiveness,” but really, the reasoning is simpler. As Secretary Leung says, the CE is centrally appointed, and if the centre hires for two years whoever the HK EC elects, there's no if, and or but, whether you're pro-democrat or pro-centre. And since things are hectic enough as is, nobody's going to argue with the decision.
The truth is that the a long or short CE term has its pluses and minuses, and people don't mind much either way. As long as it's written out in law, retroactive changes are, in the lack of viable alternatives, an acceptable solution. In fact, I'd rather the NPC amend the Basic Law to clearly reflect the situation, rather than go through another “interpretation.” But yes, it's true that all this verbal yoga is quite entertaining.
UPDATE (2005/03/15 0126PST): Democratic Party head Lee Wing Tat just recommended amending the Basic Law on the radio, thus proving that I don't always disagree with the pro-democrats.
繼律政司司長梁愛詩在星期天發現了一個全香港市民也沒聽過，連特區政府也承認事前一無所知的「立法原意」後，各界人士也陸續轉汰認同特首任期為兩年的說法，連特區政府也包括在內。Simon稱這是因為北京有「說服力」，其實理由更簡單。正如梁司長所說，特首是中央委任的，你們香港選舉委員會今年選了特首後，中央請獲選的做兩年特首，你們香港民主派又好，親中派又好，又奈他們如何？現在程況已經這麼亂，還有人敢囉唆嗎？
其實特首任期長短各有利弊，市民也沒有甚麼特別取向，只要法律上有明確的表示，事發後才明文寫出來也是沒有辦法的辦法。最好的辦法是人大修改基本法來明確表明程況，比「釋法」更有說服力。但是看這班人像是口巴做瑜珈般去改變事前的說法是的確蠻有趣的。
更新﹝二零零五年三月十五日，溫哥華時間凌晨一時二十六分﹞：民主黨黨魁李永達剛在電台節目中建議修改基本法，證明我不是每件事都跟民主派的看法有出入。
Posted by Kelvin at March 14, 2005 8:25 PM
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