Patron–Client Politics in Hong Kong: a case study of the 2002 and 2005 Chief Executive elections

Abstract

The Chief Executive's (CE's) relationship with Beijing is bound to entail a patron-client network, for Beijing has to confirm, endorse and announce the CE's official appointment after a local electoral process where the CE is elected by the 800-man Election Committee, a ‘small circle’ electoral method that is favourable to maintain patron-client relations. In other words, a skilful manipulation of patron-client relations can help to secure electoral success. Still, the candidate has to build up a stable reciprocal relationship with the voters to consolidate their sense of client list recognition to maintain loyalties by means of offering material or non-material benefits the clients need, or even seeking assistance from the patron Beijing. Nevertheless, such exchange of benefits sometimes may not be so successful as to earn the loyalties of all, especially the pro-democracy and voters with different political ideology. Further, the dyadic relations and loyalties of a patron's clients can shift between patrons so that one's patron can also become another's client, like the incumbent CE Donald Tsang who is the client of Beijing but also the patron of all his political appointees, and the former CE Tung Chee-hwa, who was the client of Beijing especially the former President Jiang Zemin, but Tung himself was the patron of many Hong Kong elites coopted to the various institutions and positions. Finally, Beijing's obsession with maintaining effective of indirect control over the HKSAR polity by ordaining the actual choice of a CE and hence the resulting non-contested CE elections of 2002 and 2005 in which open nominations of CE candidates were conducted but the secret balloting for the qualified candidates was not held at all. In short, while voters may become the clients of Beijing, candidates may also seek to become the client list supporter of the central government. Patron-client relation is arguably the hallmark of the insider politics in CE elections.