HK's next chief needs to be a fixer and repair lost confidence

HONG KONG'S embattled leader Carrie Lam, who has governed the global financial hub through the unprecedented upheavals of anti-government protests and Covid-19, will not be seeking a second 5-year term of office. She will complete her tenure as chief executive on Jun 30, and officially conclude a 42-year career in government.

A month more to the May 8 ballot - which had been delayed for 6 weeks due to the resurgence in Covid-19 cases - there is still no clear successor. The city's chief secretary John Lee, who was security chief during the 2019 protests, is one of the frontrunners. The other is financial secretary Paul Chan. If Lee gets the job, it would signal Beijing's emphasis on national security in the next 5 years. If a more popular choice gets the pick, it may be an indication that Beijing desires to improve the city's economy and repair lost confidence.

Whoever gets China's stamp of approval will have to navigate the same constraints as Lam did. He will have to juggle Beijing's priorities and those of the 7.4 million people in the Special Administrative Region. While the new chief is elected by a 1,500-member pro-Beijing committee, Hong Kongers must see him as a more effective advocate of the territory's interests in relation to the central government in Beijing. Only then will the new chief have a better chance of gaining the civil services' loyalties and allaying Hong Kongers' fears that their political freedoms will be further compromised.