Sunday, October 16, 2005

Strong Governance = Good Governance?

Hong Kong's new Chief Executive just delivered his maiden Policy Address a couple days ago, you can read the whole thing here.

It is not the content of the Policy Address that has caught my eye though, rather it is the title of the Policy Address, "Strong Governance for the People", that gets me thinking:

Now for those of us who are being governed, all we care about is whether the government has good or bad governance.

Who cares whether governance is strong or weak, as long as it is good? May be it's just me, but I simply cannot see any logical relationship between strong and good governance.

If strong governance means the government is vested with more power to carry out its functions, and few limitations are imposed on that power(which is the case in Hong Kong), then common sense would suggest bad governance is far more likely to be the outcome.

God bless Hong Kong!

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