Workers’ union eyes two 2013 election bids

‘We can follow the New Macau [Association] strategy and split in two lists to get more votes,’ Macau Federation of Trade Unions vice-president Kwan Tsui Hang said

The Macau Federation of Trade Unions (AGOM) would consider launching two bids for next year’s elections for the Legislative Assembly, in order to boost its representation, Kwan Tsui Hang said.
Legal expert Jorge Godinho and AGOM vice-president Lam Heong Sam have called for changes to the modified D’Hondt method used to distribute mandates at the AL, which favours lists with a smaller number of votes.
“Even if the calculation method is maintained, there is no problem. We can follow the New Macau [Association] strategy and split in two lists to get more votes,” AGOM vice-president Kwan told Portuguese-language newspaper Ponto Final.
In the last AL elections, held in 2009, the New Macau Association put forward two bids, working around a system that makes “it extremely difficult [for any bid] to elect a third seat,” Godinho wrote.
In the end the pan-democrats achieved their goal of electing three lawmakers. “Voters are smart and they managed to organise themselves, at a family level, for instance, to distribute the votes between” the two bids, the association president Jason Chao told Ponto Final.
“Any association that has many supporters is able to maximise the votes. It’s a strategy that can be followed by other groups, added António José de Freitas, a member of the electoral committee for the Chief Executive.
However Godinho said the “artificial division of lists” was “inherently wrong”.
“It is time to change this system and move towards a less distorted and more faithfully proportional system,” the University of Macau professor said.

Anti-lobbies

Lawyer and lawmaker Leonel Alves warned against a change to the method for allocating seats at the AL. “In theory it’s possible but it’s a decade-long practice and any changes must take into account the possible consequences,” he told Rádio Macau last weekend.
The calculation method was tweaked for the 1991 AL elections after in 1988 two political forces – ‘Associação de Amizade’, led by ex-Consumer Council president Alexandre Ho, and ‘União Eleitoral’ – split the six directly-elected seats, Eilo Yu Wing Yat wrote in an article.
“This change was not made by chance. It was carefully considered and with the most adequate solution for Macau’s situation in mind,” Freitas recalled. “Good things should be upheld.”
“Macau is a small place where there are many lobbies and very powerful companies and people. The current method makes sense because it favours small groups and better fits the local political setting and electoral culture,” the head of Holy House of Mercy said.
“When this change was introduced, the goal was to help smaller groups, which do not have a big organisational capacity,” Kwan said. “What we all expect is for more diverse groups to be able to participate in the elections. And that is better encouraged by the current Macau system.”
Chao said that a return to the conventional D’Hondt might not benefit the major associations such as AGOM and the Macau General Neighbourhood Unions Association. “It will depend on the number of lawmakers elected. If there is no significant increase, they will not benefit,” he explained.
During the first five sessions of the public consultation on political reform, most participants have called for the introduction of two more directly-elected seats at the AL, along with two more indirectly-elected ones.