Elite Politics and the Democracy Movement in Macau
Elite politics in Macau has undergone significant changes since the territory’s administrative right was returned from Portugal to China in December 1999. Before the retrocession of Macau, elite politics in the Portuguese administrative territory was dominated by a powerful pro-Beijing or patriotic force, an influential Portuguese elite, and a relatively powerless pro-democracy camp. The dominance of the patriotic forces was attributable to the 1966 riot when the Portuguese administration issued an apology to the government of the People’s Republic of China for the violent and bloody confrontation of the local police and the Maoists over the construction of a school in Taipa. Since then, the pro-Taiwan forces in Macau were eliminated, whereas the pro-Beijing political forces almost governed Macau together with the ruling Portuguese elite. This co-governance of Macau by the pro-Beijing force and the Pvortuguese elite was unique and unprecedented in any Mainland Chinese territory. Unlike Hong Kong where the pro-Beijing forces and secret party cells were destroyed by the British colonial police in 1967-68, the Macau situation was very different and marked by the continuation of the powerful pro-Beijing forces in the territory.
Yet, Macau’s political landscape changed with the passage of time. The pro-democracy forces slowly gained public support in the mid-1980s when the electoral franchise was widened to encourage more local Chinese to vote in direct elections held for the legislature. The rise of democrats such as Alexander Ho Si-him was a case in point. At the same time, the Portuguese elite maintained their influence upon the polity, together with the dominant pro-Beijing forces led by the local Federation of Labour, the kaifong associations and the local chamber of commerce as well as other patriotic social groups. In the 1990s, the pro-democracy forces rejuvenated themselves after the 1989 Tiananmen Incident in Mainland China, for young activists such as Ng Kuok Cheong and Au Kam San became prominent democrats fighting for democratic reforms in Macau. Prior to the transfer of administrative right in December 1999, the political alignment remained in favour of the pro-Beijing forces, followed by the increasingly less influential Portuguese elite, and the rising but outnumbered democratic elite.
After the handover, however, elite politics in Macau has undergone significant readjustment. The Portuguese elite has been in decline, especially in terms of the number of elites elected directly or indirectly to the legislature. Although the Portuguese elite maintains its influence through informal lobbying and interaction with the government officials, its overall influence upon the polity has been curbed – a phenomenon complicated by the fact that the Portuguese community has been politically split into groups without the shared political consensus and orientations. This relatively loosely organized Portuguese force is perhaps a reflection of the political pluralism and diversity in Portugal, where party politics are competitive and fragmented. Yet, the unintended consequence of such divided Portuguese elite is that its community’s political impact on government policy has been significantly reduced. Unless the Portuguese force reorganizes itself in a more united manner, its co-existence
and powerful influence together with the patriotic elite in pre-1999 Macau were a thing of the past.
The pro-Beijing elite, on the other hand, has been undergoing a silent political revolution and transformation. On the one hand, the pro-Beijing forces have been fragmented, with the rise of a newer generation of young leaders. However, their views were different from the traditionally influential old patriotic elite. The generational change within the patriotic camp is significant; some of the younger leaders and rising stars tend to have more critical and open-minded political outlook, but the “old guards” remain relatively conservative, cautious and apprehensive of any political change. The tensions between the two generational camps are not often noted by observers, but in fact their views toward various policy issues, ranging from labour to poverty alleviation, were different. The pro-Beijing labour unions are also under the challenge of new labour groups which are far more critical, vocal and independent. The patriotic business groups tend to be slower in renewing their leaders. But comparatively speaking, the rejuvenation of the patriotic forces in Macau tends to be slower than that in Hong Kong, where the patriotic camp succeeded in a political comeback in grasping considerable number of seats in the 2007 District Councils elections.
The pro-Beijing forces in Macau has been traditionally relied on constituency services, such as home visits, elderly services, professional talks, and many other activities that attempt to win the hearts and minds of the ordinary people. Still, the overall results of the patriotic forces in legislative elections after December 1999 have not been very impressive. In particular, the kaifong association and the labour groups had great difficulties in defeating the democrats and for-stalling the latter to grasp more legislative seats. No wonder that the Liaison Office chief in Macau in March 2008 delivered a speech in the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress and appealed to the Macao patriotic forces for the need to rejuvenate themselves very quickly. The message is clear: they have to inject more new and young blood to compete with the democrats in the forthcoming September 2009 Legislative Assembly elections.
The pro-democracy forces in Macau have remained relatively weak in many aspects. First, they lack manpower. Second, they do not have the financial and professional resources to compete with the patriotic ruling camp. None of the Macau lawyers appears to play a role in the Macau pro-democracy movement. Third, the democrats only use moral appeal to persuade voters to cast their ballots for the democratic force, unlike the patriotic forces which are endowed with tremendous material resources and manpower.
As a result of Macau’s truncated political system in which the ruling patriotic forces are in lack of younger and charismatic leaders, the Portuguese elite is internally divided, and the pro-democracy forces do not have sufficient resources to challenge the regime, the political system is now opening more room for independent groups to participate in elections. Labour groups critical of the regime and supportive of street protests, especially the May 2007 confrontation, are now trying to prepare for the legislative election in 2009, but they are still weak because of the fragmentation of various labour groups. Because of these relatively weak and problematic political forces that cannot garner sufficient votes to claim a mandate to rule Macau, the polity that is still structurally biased in favour of the pro-Beijing establishment groups (such as business and labour) shows signs of a legitimacy problem. The appeal by the Beijing officials to the patriotic forces to rejuvenate themselves is an important one, which however cannot be immediately tackled by the pro-Beijing forces themselves. Consequently, we can boldly anticipate that more groups critical of the establishment forces will continue to challenge the ruling labour-business coalition in the 2009 legislative elections. At the same time, the call for democratic changes by the pro-democracy elite is bound to be ignored by the dominant but largely stagnant ruling coalition.
If this analysis is accurate, Macau’s pro-democracy movement is facing a uphill battle. Macau’s political system is like a bird cage in which some democratic elements are tolerated, but they are dominated by a largely old and slowly adapting pro-Beijing forces, while the Portuguese force is in decline except for its influence upon some civil servants.
The entire Macau polity is a stagnant one quite different from Hong Kong’s relatively powerful pro-democracy movement. Under these circumstances, the triangular relations between the pro-Beijing forces, the pro-democracy forces and the Portuguese elite remain to be observed, but their strategic interactions will unlikely alter the comparatively stagnant political development in Macau at least in the short run.
Sonny Lo is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.