When Carrie Lam became Hong Kong’s chief executive in 2017, she positioned herself as a candidate for unity. Five years on, having announced this morning her decision to step down, she will be remembered as Hong Kong’s most divisive leader.
There is a grim irony that Lam – who was Beijing’s favoured choice for the top job – used ‘WeConnect’ as a campaign slogan. If that was her hope, it is hard to think of a politician who has failed in their ambitions more profoundly. Lam’s stubborn insistence in pushing through a wildly unpopular extradition bill in 2019, which would have allowed Hong Kongers to be extradited to the mainland, did overwhelmingly unify Hong Kongers, if only against her. At one protest, as many as one in three people in the city marched in protest. In local elections in 2019, the democrats won an unprecedented landslide in what was perceived as a vote of no confidence for Lam’s government.
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