Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumHong Kong leader complains: Allowing democracy would let poor people dominate elections
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/hong-kong-leader-complains-allowing-democracy-would-let-poor-people-dominate-elections/A pro-democracy protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask stands at a barricade during a stand-off with police in Hong Kong's Mong Kok district on Oct. 19, 2014.
Hong Kong leader complains: Allowing democracy would let poor people dominate elections
Agence France-Presse
20 Oct 2014 at 22:14 ET
Hong Kongs Beijing-backed leader Leung Chun-ying told media that if the government met pro-democracy protesters demands it would result in the citys poorer people dominating elections.
In an interview with foreign media, carried in the Wall Street Journal and International New York Times, the embattled chief executive reiterated his position that free elections were impossible.
Demonstrators have paralysed parts of Hong Kong with mass rallies and road blockades for more than three weeks, in one of the biggest challenges to Beijings authority since the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests of 1989.
Leungs comments were published just hours before talks between senior government officials and student leaders to end the impasse are scheduled to take place later on Tuesday.
liberal N proud
(60,349 posts)That would be terrible, they might vote in their own best interest and become a little less poor.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)I wonder what the ghosts of the Long March would say.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)spike91nz
(180 posts)in the democratic process is how you effect political change to correct the conditions contributing to the production of poverty. There is value in democratic political feedback over and above mere economic feedback. This appears to be a difficult concept for some politicians to grasp.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)annabanana
(52,791 posts)The word. like so many others, has completely lost it's meaning
fasttense
(17,301 posts)It's infuriating to see China called a Communist country when they clearly practice some sort of Milton Friedman type of capitalism. It's like calling the US a socialist country. It really gives a bad name to communism.
get the red out
(13,468 posts)We can show them how to make sure only the ultra rich control elections.
annabanana
(52,791 posts)good one!