One of the reasons for some people protesting against the top legislature's ruling on Hong Kong's electoral arrangements in 2007-08 is that they don't like the current chief executive (CE).

Hong Kong will get a new CE in 2007. But will it get a better CE or CE's team next time if a general election is held? We don't know.

Or if things go sour, in the worst scenario, such as if Hong Kong will run an election on a highly split society, and get a SAR government that is confrontational to Beijing, can it really draw any benefit? We don't know.

Let's get down to the very basic point of concern: If you don't like the current CE (which will not be the issue in 2007), what are the things that you would expect the new CE to do? We still do not know.

Hong Kong can't just blame Beijing for slowing down its pace of democracy. Democracy is already a huge problem here even though it is yet to be fully practised.

One of the problems is that Hong Kong still doesn't have an agenda. To be straightforward, many people still don't know what they want.

Hong Kong citizens have never learned much from each other about the things that they would lay down for the CE to do (and not to do), or the main tasks of the SAR government. That's partly because politicians have failed to show much leadership in setting up a useful platform for public debate.

Since its return to the motherland in 1997, Hong Kong has never made studies on how it will build its basic structure for working together with the central government, and how it will maintain a regular channel of consultation on political development - joined by experts on politics and law from both sides.

Since the Asian financial turmoil in 1998 and burst of the Internet bubble in 2000, it has never held debates on what it will have to do to regain its importance, if not carve a new niche, in world business.

Since China's accession to the WTO in 2001, Hong Kong has not pushed hard enough on proposals to consolidate interests in the key areas of mainland co-operation, even in the neighbouring Pearl River Delta and Shanghai.

And since the idea of "Hong Kong people running Hong Kong" was first raised in the 1980s, it has never explored the possibility of whether there can be at least one independent think-tank to try to connect the big theories with Hong Kong's realities.

But now some people are expecting a general election to yield answers to all these questions, and to trigger automatic changes. They may have failed to recognize the full value of democracy.

Democracy is purposeless without citizens laying down their points of view. And you don't need a general election to do so.

Hong Kong has quite a developed free media. There are plenty of channels for citizens to hold debates on issues of concern and compare notes.

In fact, despite all the rowing about general elections, many people don't even have the slightest idea which kind of background should a CE have? What interests do they expect him to represent? How do they expect him to work with the civil service, the LegCo, the public and the central government?

Without discussing these issues, Hong Kong is walking down a dark alley. A town of smart business people should have got a better deal for itself than just this.

Sadly, however, it seems the only thing that some local political activists care about is to hold early general elections.

Other than that, they never seem interested in laying down points - such as their views on where Hong Kong is going.

Is it because they think they can run a working democracy with an empty agenda, or because they have an agenda that they don't want to share with the public?

Sometimes, a simple point in everyday life can get missed in politics.

Let's think what a company would do if it fires a doorman for negligence. It must remind the new guy of the basic requirements, such as to never fall asleep at work.

By the same token, the risk can be untold if Hong Kong just puts another person in the CE post without telling him what to do, and even without discussing what the public expects him to do.

(HK Edition 05/05/2004 page2)