In an acknowledgement that functional constituency seats do not give true legitimacy to political parties in Hong Kong, the pro-business Liberal Party is chancing its arm at winning geographical seats this time around. They are putting their three best known members forward including party leader James Tien. Beijing is getting behind them. They hope to form the "ruling party" after the election together with the misnamed Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB).

It would normally be funny that the Communist Party of China, representing the proleteriat and peasants, finds its best chance is to back the pro-cartel, pro-business Liberal Party, who's leader drives a Porsche and is a multi-millionaire. The SCMP reports poor James Tien mixed with the riff-raff on a public bus:

Liberal Party chairman James Tien Pei-chun formally began his maiden battle for a directly elected Legislative Council seat yesterday and had his first taste of campaigning - squeezed in a double-decker bus stuck in heavy traffic. Forsaking his customary Porsche to pack in with fellow candidates and hangers-on, the wealthy businessman known as "Young Master Tien" was full of confidence, despite repeatedly complaining about the bus's lack of power on the hills.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows and both the CCP and Liberal Party have one thing in common: they prefer the status-quo.

UPDATE: Let's quote liberally from Hemlock's entry today. He has the good taste to even reach the same conclusion as the title of this post:

...Beijing is serious about the Liberal Party. Not only is it shooing away would-be candidates from other loyalist groups, it seems to be eyeing James Tien’s band of opportunistic, pro-cartel nematodes as the anti-democratic mass-appeal movement the DAB has failed to become.

The idea of someone as unprincipled, let alone un-burdened by cerebral ability, as James Tien as Chief Executive is so frightening that hundreds of commuting taxpayers momentarily consider making a dash straight to the Airport Express. But no, that’s just Baby James fantasizing. Even so, it is a sobering thought that Beijing feels a need to boost a political grouping so driven by naked self-interest that it stabbed Tung Chee-hwa in the back over Article 23 last year.

As well as being slimy, the Liberals lack even the faintest grasp of public policy. Indeed, their shallowness when it comes to political issues is a wonder to behold. Who can forget their brilliant initiative – the levy on foreign maids, which raised irrelevant amounts of revenue, irritated maids’ middle class employers and effectively taxed the lowest-paid members of the workforce? In a recent attempt to prove themselves friendly to the working class, they recently argued against the proposed MTR rail line to the south of Hong Kong island, on the grounds that consumer preference for this faster and cleaner transport system would deprive 300 bus drivers of their jobs. Such intellectual bankruptcy, such deficiency of any sort of integrity, cannot be matched by any other Hong Kong political grouping – and that’s no mean achievement. We can only hope that Beijing’s anointment of these unprincipled worms will turn out to be the kiss of death.