Ron Lam U Tou, a former member of the Macau Federation of Trade Unions, said yesterday that his electoral group, Synergy Power (No. 15 on the September 17 ballot), would urge the government to promote the legislature’s democratic development by enabling each member of the indirect election’s five sectors to have one vote in the direct and one vote in the indirect legislative elections.

Lam, who chairs the think tank Macau Synergy Association, is the first-ranked candidate of the group while Johnson Ian Heng Ut, a former deputy chief reporter of the Chinese-language newspaper Macao Daily News who has started his own business, is the second-ranked candidate.

Addressing a press conference about his group’s political platform at the group’s office, Lam said his group was proposing that all registered voters from the five indirect-election sectors should be able to vote in both direct and indirect elections.

There are 12 seats for candidates running in the indirect election. However, only a relatively small number of representatives of registered associations have currently the right to cast their ballot in the indirect election.

Pointing out that also in many other jurisdictions not all legislators are elected by universal suffrage, Lam said: “The fact is, those with a business background account for more than half of the total number of directly-elected lawmakers [in the local legislature].
“Does it really enable representatives of every sector of civil society to join the legislature simply by increasing the number of seats of directly-elected lawmakers?”, Lam asked rhetorically.

Lam, Ian and Che I Kei, the fifth-ranked candidates on the list, are former journalists. When asked by a reporter why they decided to run in the election, Ian said he had been reporting news related to the legislature for many years and he could not “tolerate” that the legislature’s power of monitoring the government “is so weak”.

Compared to ordinary residents, most journalists have a better understanding of social issues, Ian said, adding he was confident about his fellow candidates’ abilities. “We think that if we become legislators, we would perform much better than them [sitting lawmakers],” he said

Asked by a reporter if Lam’s group was middle-of-the-road, Lam denied it, adding that his group would support the government’s policies which are good while criticising those that are opposed by the public.

Candidates Ron Lam U Tou (centre), Johnson Ian Heng Ut (left) and Vitor da Rocha Vai pose yesterday at a press conference about the Synergy Power group’s political platform at the group’s office in Avenida do Conselheiro Ferreira de Almeida. Photo: Debby Seng

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