Don’t Vote Audrey Eu in 2008

Awaiting a Democratic Hong Kong.

One Legislator is a high profile woman lawyer, the other is a Legislator who spent time in jail for sleeping with a prostitute. Both are Pro-Democratic Hong Kong. I don’t support the person you would assume and this is why.

Amendment: I made a mistake in terms of Mr. Albert Ho and Mr. Alex Ho. Mr. Alex Ho is the politician caught with a prostitute and has now resigned. It is a grave mistake but in between the English names and Chinese names I did get confused. Apologizes to Mr. Albert Ho and his wife!! And mainly for making such a mistake in something important. However with that correction my points in this post remains. (Thanks SY for pointing it out).

to WIn the Hong Kong Island West Constituency that I am part of, there were two separate democratic camps who I could have voted for. One belongs to the Democratic Party, the other are two independent candidates who worked on article 45. For the latter, the top ticket was a woman named Audrey Eu, while the Democratic Party candiates included Yueng Sum first and Martin Lee on the second.   

Mainly due to the confusing and very unfair electoral system they suggested that people teamed up into pairs of two and voted for one ticket each. As I am the only person in my family in Hong Kong, I pretty much had one vote to give and wasn’t sure who I wanted to vote for. Personally, I thought to give it to the Democratic Party as I feel they were the most established and have a long history of participation but I wanted to give the woman candidate a chance. So when I encountered her down in Central campaigning I posed a few questions, all ready for her to convince me.

My main question was, “Since my top priority is the democratic cause, I know I will give either of you my vote. However in order to choose between the two tickets, can you tell me a little bit about the difference in your policies?”

She bombed, she didn’t have any positions. She said that as an independent candidate she could vote whichever way she felt was necessary and not tied to  the party, which made me nervous. So I said,

"But then how will I know if I will support your future decisions? What are they now?

After that she tried to fob me off by telling me to go to her website which she didn’t have any printed materials for. She told me to read her leaflet, which I already had, and pointed out that they were simply a story of her previous work, and not her future positions. After that she told me to find a friend, so I could share my vote. When I told her I really wanted to make a decision for myself, she just kept repeating, “Don’t you have someone? I think you should find someone.”

I sum her up as rude, arrogant, and completely useless as a politician. I was furious. I spent my whole lunch complaining to my friend, who was equally disturbed by her behavior. We were both disappointed and came away knowing Audrey Eu did not deserve our vote.

At the same time, another poltical storm of larger magniture was forming. Mr. Albert Alex Ho was caught sleeping with a prostitute in China. He ended up being arrested, eventually spent time in jail in the mainland. He tried to resign from his position from the DP. The party urged him to reconsider and in the end he stayed. To this day there is a lot of argument whether he was framed or not. Others say that he should know at such a sensitive time that he should behave, and therefore he’s stupid, arrogant or very obviously framed. Personally, I am pretty convinced that woman was in the room with him, thanks to the rather unsavory photos printed on the Apple Daily and accept that he paid for her services. Whether or not she was paid to come onto him is a matter only the CCP knows. Supposedly the DP lost about 5 to 15% of women voter’s support.

Which was a shame because I don’t believe people’s private lives are up for debate in politics. As far as the candidate supports my causes, as long as his or personal flaws are not something extremely disturbing like dating underage girls, beating one’s wife, or child molestations I try to withhold any kind of judgement. But other women and other people have their priorities and that’s fine. I understand some people feel that leaders should be people we look up to.

However, tonight after I watched a five minutes debate between Audrey Eu and Albert Ho, I came to the conclusion once again, that she is arrogant, rude and a terrible strategic politically.

Firstly, when a question was posed to Mr. Ho, she jumped into reply. “Let me say something first” and started to on to monologue of irrelevance. Then she goes to not support an alternative candidate for the new Chief excecutive “elections” for no reason other than that we already know the outcome of that. Yet don’t suggest a better alternative.

Considering I came to that conclusion all by myself one evening, and had no idea that the democratic camp was thinking the same thing, I truly believe that’s the only way to go, and was quite relieved to realize that the DP was already working towards it. So her non-supports shows me she has very limited ability to think outside the box, which is not something we want at this junction.

To make matters even worse she then expressed we should not mount a legal challenge against the reinterpretation of the Basic Law because it was a waste of time. Her reason again? We already know the outcome. Her alternative? We should continue to educate the public on the democratic cause.

Right..

We educate a public who are over 60% in favor of the democratic cause, but don’t have give one practical way for them to fight for it. Her logic is we should not waste out time when we know the outcome.

Audrey Darling, why don’t you just stay home?

We already know China is not going to give us a democratic system. So maybe we already know the outcome of that too. So why bother?

After this, I feel like I need to say, I really question if she deserves the wide spread support she has. I already felt that in September, only mentioning it briefly, because I don’t feel like we should start attacking each other at this very early stage of the movement. But since it’s out of the bag on her behalf, as she is so publicly disagreeing with the Democratic Party, I felt like letting my personal feelings known as well. 

Audrey Eu should remain an educator, and work on her radio show. She should remain a lawyer and fight in legal challenges (If only she feels she can win.)

For the record, I hope the next election that the votes that are going to her will sway to the DP. Sadly that won’t happen, as many a woman voter will give them her vote as well as other people who are disillusioned with the Democratic Party. I say if you don’t want to vote for the Democratic Party in the Hong Kong Constituency, vote a labor candidate like, “The Bull,” he’s a bit crude but hey, he’s a democratic cause supporter and the man has some real politicies. For example like minimum wage.

On top of that, he doesn’ he talk over people on the same side, and sit around with her helmet hair and a smug smile while she is at it.

I know that in three and a half years time, who I would be campaigning for, and I thought I would start doing it early today.

Don’t Vote Audrey Eu for 2008. Vote for the Democratic Party Candidate whoever that maybe. At least we know what we’re getting and we know they will work tirelessly at a cause as they have done for the last decades.

The Democratic Party Platform