City Beat: Tainted water scare has made for strange bedfellows
Scandal is a huge 'livelihood' issue that shows government and parties must work closer
If not unlikely, it is certainly rare to see agreement between Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and the Democratic Party. But the recent water scare at several public housing estates has drawn the two together on one particular issue - ensuring the safety of drinking water in the city.
As the contamination scandal keeps snowballing, the government is getting a real taste of what "back to livelihood" issues mean. Nothing is trivial in livelihood matters and they can easily turn into a political battlefield.
Governments need close political allies. In Hong Kong, that role falls to the pro-establishment camp, especially during the government's months-long campaign selling its political reform proposal. Though the proposal was rejected and the pro-establishment lawmakers' voting blunder turned into farce, it did not change the fact the camp is still a necessary, strong partner for the government.
Regardless of its sought-after change in focus, the pro-establishment camp seems to be losing the "livelihood" battle, while the Democratic Party, or to be precise, one of its lawmakers, has emerged as the obvious heroine. Kowloon West lawmaker Helena Wong Pik-wan is credited with exposing the contamination.
Wong may not always be seen as the best lawmaker, but her actions on behalf of the Democratic Party outperformed all the other parties, including the biggest party in the pro-establishment camp, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, which questioned the credibility of Wong's tests as the issue began to unfold. On the other hand, the government - though quick to form a high-level cross-departmental task force - seems to have adopted a passive role. It sent out confusing messages from different departments shortly after the contamination was revealed, which led to an embarrassing apology from housing minister Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung.
As scores of residents line up to have their blood tested for lead levels, the issue is turning into a political time bomb for the government.
Unlike the overwhelming hostility from the whole pan-democratic camp against the 2017 reform package, the chief executive may find some comfort in his recent meeting with the Democratic Party.
Emily Lau Wai-hing, the party's chairwoman, told reporters that the water issue took up most of the meeting time. In contrast to the Civic Party, which viewed its meeting with Leung earlier as useless, Lau stopped just short of describing their 75-minute meeting as "satisfactory".
Lau said the meeting, which ran 30 minutes longer than scheduled, was a new beginning for both sides.
This comes back to the fundamental issue: to what extent can the government cooperate with the pan-democrats, since the pro-establishment camp doesn't always perform well?
The allocation of government resources is one of the major concerns for different parties in judging how "sincere" the government is. That may explain why Leung's unveiling of a massive citywide clean-up campaign on July 9 caused controversy. Leung revealed the plan in response to a question by DAB chairwoman Starry Lee Wai-king in Legco. The pan-democrats immediately saw this as "collusion" between the two for promoting the DAB's district influence as the district council elections are approaching .
The pan-democrats might be right, but that is the political reality if they continue the campaign of non-cooperation. The government simply needs to partner with parties that share the same philosophy.
The government and the pro-establishment camp are bound to be heading in the same direction, good or bad. The water scare and the reform vote fiasco are the two most recent examples where both should reflect on how they could work better as a team. As well, the government should improve its working relationship with the pan-democrats to put the spotlight on "livelihood" issues.
