GrogHeads Forum

IRL (In Real Life) => Current Events => Topic started by: BanzaiCat on October 21, 2014, 07:04:58 AM

Title: Interesting take on elections
Post by: BanzaiCat on October 21, 2014, 07:04:58 AM
http://qz.com/284352/hong-kong-has-too-many-poor-people-to-allow-direct-elections-leader-says/

QuoteHONG KONG—Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement protesters have been demanding that the city's top official, CY Leung, step down for weeks now. They may soon be joined by many more of the city's 7 million residents, after a controversial interview last night in which Leung suggested that election reforms sought by the protestors would invite undue influence from the city's poor.

Speaking at his official residence, a colonial-era mansion set above the city—it's furnished with crystal chandeliers and guarded by massive stone lions—Leung addressed three foreign newspapers that target Hong Kong's wealthy international community. Allowing the entire voting population of Hong Kong, some 5 million people, to directly nominate candidates for the city's top official position would be a mistake, Leung said:

"If it's entirely a numbers game—numeric representation—then obviously you'd be talking to half the people in Hong Kong [that] earn less than US$1,800 a month. You would end up with that kind of politics and policies."

Leung gave the interview to the Financial Times, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Something tells me the Democratic Party would never take root in China with that kind of attitude.