CY Leung

**Leung Chun-ying** GBM GBS JP (Chinese: 梁振英; born 12 August 1954), also known as **CY Leung**, is a Chinese politician and chartered surveyor, who has served as vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conferencesince March 2017. He was previously the third Chief Executive of Hong Kong between 2012 and 2017.

## Chief Executive campaign

On 28 November 2011, Leung officially announced his candidacy for Chief Executive of Hong Kong, two years after he had first hinted at his interest in the post.

The election campaign was controversial and bitterly fought. The early favourite to win was long-considered to be former Chief Secretary Henry Tang, who was supported by the local bureaucracy, key property and business tycoons, and crucially, by the Beijing government. However, while Tang stumbled over the revelation of an illegal structure at his home, Leung faced similar problems at his residence.

Leung appointed Fanny Law, who attracted widespread criticisms for mishandling educational reforms when in office from 2002 to 2006, to his Office of the Chief-Executive Elect as Campaign Manager.

During the campaign, rumours persistently resurfaced that Leung was a closet member of the Chinese Communist Party. Section 31 of Chief Executive Election Ordinance (Chapter 569) stipulates that a CE election winner must "publicly make a statutory declaration to the effect that he is not a member of any political party".

Martin Lee, a pro-democracy politician, questioned the survival of the 'one country, two systems' principle if Leung were to be elected the CE, saying that Leung must have been a loyal CCP member for him to be appointed as the Secretary General of the Basic Law Consultative Committee in 1985 at the young age of 31. This view was supported by a former underground communist, Florence Leung, whose memoir recorded that Leung was also a secret member of the party. She explained that, in order for Leung to succeed Mao Junnian (whose identity as a communist had been revealed) as the Secretary General of the Basic Law Consultative Committee, he must also have been a party member, per the tradition of the party. She also cited Leung's vague remarks about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre as a clue to his membership, in contrast to Henry Tang's greater sympathy for the protest movement. She said that if Leung, as an underground party member, won the election then the leader of the Communist Party in Hong Kong would be in actual control. Leung consistently dismissed such claims as ungrounded.

The suggestion that Leung's loyalty was more to Beijing than Hong Kong has long dogged him. In 2010, Leung had been asked whether he would support the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. He replied that China's former paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, should have been the first Chinese to win the award.

Towards the end of the election campaign, James Tien, the honorary chairman of the Liberal Party and a supporter of Henry Tang during the election, stated that members of the election committee had received phone calls from the Beijing government's Liaison Office demanding that they vote for Leung.

On 25 March 2012, Leung was declared Hong Kong's new Chief Executive, after securing 689 votes from the 1,200-member appointed election committee. Henry Tang garnered 285 votes and the third candidate, Democrat Albert Ho, just 76, of a total of 1,132 valid votes received.

Upon his selection, the online version of the People's Daily addressed Leung as "Comrade Leung Chun-ying". When the Chinese mass media pointed out that the title Comrade (or tongzhi, 同志) is reserved by the party for its own members, and that neither Tung Chee-hwa nor Donald Tsang had been thus addressed, the epithet "Comrade" was removed from the page.

Leung's property at 4 Peel Rise, The Peak

After his selection, a number of illegal or unauthorised structures were found at Leung's house, in a reprise of the scandal involving an illegal basement that had badly hit the campaign of his rival, Tang, and for which Leung had roundly criticised Tang. The issue dominated the period around his taking up the post. Leung's structures were to be demolished. Chief Executive contender Albert Ho challenged Leung's legal legitimacy as the territory's new leader but his claim was rejected by the High Court.

## Chief Executive

### Transition periodEdit

Leung assumed office as Chief Executive on 1 July 2012. On top of the controversy surrounding illegal structures of his house, in which he was severely criticised as a hypocrite for using the same accusation in attacking his opponent during the 2012 election, there were additional disputes regarding his appointments of officers and political judgements.

Leung's appointment of Chen Ran (陳冉) as the Project Officer in his Transitional Office stirred up further criticism among the public of Hong Kong. Chen has resided in Hong Kong for less than seven years, the minimum time period which foreigners are required to reside to apply for permanent residence. Chen is a former General Secretary of the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Young Elites Association (香港菁英會), of which Leung is a patron. Chen is the daughter of a middle-ranking government official in Shanghai and a former member of the Communist Youth League.

Despite the centuries-long history of Cantonese as the de facto spoken language of Hong Kong, Leung made his inaugural speech in Mandarin, spoken in Mainland China. This was in stark contrast to his predecessor, Sir Donald Tsang, who made his inaugural speech in Cantonese in July 2007.

### Public relations

Leung's popularity ratings have been continuously low since his election. In October 2013, only 31 percent of the 1,009 participants in the HKU poll said they support Leung as the city's leader, while 55 percent disapproved of him – an increase of 6 percentage points from the previous month's poll. Leung accepted HKD50 million in a deal with Australian engineering firm UGL in 2011. On 8 October 2014, an Australian newspaper revealed how the contract was made, but Leung has denied having done anything morally or legally wrong. He sidestepped key questions, such as why he did not declare the payment to the Executive Council. This controversy has further worsened Leung's popularity.

In a media interview during the pro-democracy occupation, Leung attempted to justify the conservative electoral model for Hong Kong by stating "if it's entirely a numbers game – numeric representation – then obviously you'd be talking to half the people in Hong Kong [who] earn less than US$1,800 a month [the median wage in HK]. You would end up with that kind of politics and policies". The comments proved controversial and were considered insensitive and snobbish. South China Morning Post columnist Alex Lo said of this interview: "Leung has set the gold standard on how not to do a media interview for generations of politicians to come." Lord Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, questioned Leung's leadership skill and capacity as Hong Kong's incumbent Chief Executive. In December 2014, Leung's popularity ratings plunged to a new low, down to 39.7 percent, with a net of minus 37%. This was attributed to public perception of Leung's unwillingness to heal the wounds, and his unwarranted shifting of the blame for the wrongs in society onto opponents. Leung also claimed negative effects on the economy without providing evidence, and his assertions were contradicted by official figures.