Hong Kong leader offers mea culpa, but no concessions

Hong Kong’s unpopular leader Carrie Lam acknowledged yesterday that public dissatisfaction with her government fuelled a landslide win by pro-democracy candidates in local elections, but she drew fresh criticism by offering no new concessions to resolve months of violent protests.

In China, state media sought to downplay and discredit the weekend ballot that delivered a stinging rebuke to the financial hub’s pro-Beijing establishment. Lam admitted that the district council election result revealed public concern over “deficiencies in the government, including unhappiness with the time taken to deal with” the unrest.

In a rout that stunned the semi-autonomous territory, candidates opposing control by China seized an overwhelming majority of 452 elected seats in the city’s 18 district councils, bodies historically dominated by a Beijing-aligned establishment. It was a humiliating rebuke to Beijing and Lam, who has dismissed calls for political reform and repeatedly suggested that a silent majority supported her administration.

Since the polls, pro-democracy politicians have stepped up calls for Lam to meet key demands such as direct popular elections for the city’s leadership and legislature, and a probe into alleged police brutality against demonstrators. But in her weekly press briefing, Lam sidestepped those calls, instead denouncing street violence and repeating earlier pledges to step up a cross-party dialogue on the root causes of the turmoil, proposals previously dismissed by her opponents as inadequate.