What’s next after Carrie Lam’s exit?

When she was elected as Hong Kong’s first female chief executive in 2017, Carrie Lam pledged to work with the public to achieve “real consensus and gain the widest support from society.”

And yet, according to a poll released by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) in March, Lam’s approval rating currently stands at 26.6%. Her popularity nosedived to 18% in February 2020, the lowest level among all four chief executives who have held the post since control over the territory was handed back to China from the United Kingdom in 1997.

After announcing her decision to not run for reelection on Monday, Lam cited the desire to spend more time with her family as the reason. Many experts, however, think it is a result of Beijing’s disapproval of her performance over the last five years. “I believe the most crucial thing is that Beijing does not support Carrie Lam’s reelection,” said Kim-Wah Chung, deputy chief executive officer of PORI (Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute).

“Carrie Lam’s handling of the anti-extradition bill protests in 2019 has been very disappointing, and it has cost Beijing a lot in terms of its prestige in the hearts of Hong Kong people. I believe this is something that Beijing is also well aware of,” he added. During the press conference on Monday, Lam said she will conclude her 42-year career in the Hong Kong government on June 30, emphasizing that the Chinese authorities understood and respected her choice not to seek another term.

In 2019, the extradition bill proposed by Lam — which would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China — set off months-long protests across Hong Kongas millions of the city’s residents took to the streets to oppose the legislation and young protesters clashed with police.

The unrest ultimately led to the Chinese government’s decision to come up with a national security law for the territory in 2020, ushering in a new wave of crackdowns on civil society, with many activists and opposition figures detained in jail and pro-democracy media organizations forced to shut down. Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents have also left the city since.

Lam’s management of the COVID pandemic this year is viewed by many experts as the last straw that broke the Chinese government’s trust in her. Since February, hundreds of thousands of cases have been reported in Hong Kong, and the city’s COVID-19 mortality rate has become one of the highest in the world. Indeed, on March 17, Hong Kong reported the highest number of COVID-19 deaths worldwide in proportion to its population, according to the British Medical Journal.

“Chinese President Xi Jinping has raised his concern on the situation of the pandemic in Hong Kong, saying that the Hong Kong government has to bear responsibility for that,” said Ivan Choy, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). “Since then, I think everyone in Hong Kong thought the chance for Lam to get re-elected was becoming smaller.”

According to Choy, this is similar to the political pattern in China, where dozens of local officials have been removed from their positions after they failed to contain local COVID-19 outbreaks. “For provincial heads or mayors in China, when they can’t handle the pandemic, they have to step down,” he told DW.

This article was provided by Deutsche Welle