bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Fox Yi Hu

Macau Chief Executive Dr Fernando Chui Sai-on  (pictured) sidestepped questions about democratic reforms while stressing the need to improve people's livelihoods as he took questions from legislators yesterday following his first policy address on Tuesday.
The introduction of greater democracy in Macau, where the people's right to vote is limited to just 12 out of 29 legislative seats, is clearly off the new leader's agenda in the near future, one analyst said.
Chui, 53, gave a vague answer to one lawmaker's question about reforms and refused to answer a similar question by another legislator. 
Legislator Jose Coutinho  asked if Chui had any timetable for the introduction of more directly elected seats in the legislature and widening the membership of a 300-seat committee which elects the chief executive.
Chui said he would continue to collect views from the public regarding political reforms. 'We'll analyse the opinions after collecting them,' he said.
Legislator Antonio Ng Kuok-cheong  asked a similar question and pressed for the chief executive's personal view on  greater democracy in Macau, but Chui declined to answer his question.
Coutinho said he believed Macau people had high hopes for greater electoral rights and felt disappointed by the lack of a timetable.
But political commentator Professor Larry So Man-yum,  of the Macau Polytechnic Institute,  said the public's lack of strong demands for democracy allowed Chui to easily shrug off questions about political reform.
'Democratic demands are limited to middle-class intellectuals and professionals and the central government apparently doesn't like seeing Macau rushing into electoral reforms,' So said.
Chui said his government was 'very sincere' about enhancing the transparency of top officials' assets. 'We will revise the rules on asset declaration to let people see more openness and transparency in the system,' he said.
On Tuesday, Chui announced a three billion-pataca  cash  handout involving payments of 6,000 patacas each to permanent residents and 3,600 patacas to each non-permanent resident.



Chui shrugs off questions about greater democracy in Macau