The first of these inevitable: the new CE will be selected formally later in the year. Of course, almost everyone thinks that they know who the chosen one is and assumes the formalities will confirm their guess.
Here, we don’t have access to the ears of the grand jury; but, as we believe in the professionalism of the Xinhua News Agency and its photographers, we also have a guess. However, given the nature of the selection process, going into that would be idle talk without much consequence.
Not that the personality and political skills of the one that will take over in December are irrelevant, far from that; but, we need to recognize that regardless of the person, much of the conditions that will frame the job are set by the invariance of dominant interests represented in the local polity, and the needs and objectives of the new phase in internal and external mainland policies.
It will take much dexterity to maneuver in those waters, fulfilling the political and economic jobs assigned to the region, while preserving its unique character and improving the quality of life of the residents.
As for gambling concessions, the government still has some margin. Assuming the two operators that will end their concessions earlier ask for an extension and they are granted, as it seems reasonable to believe, the authorities do not have to show their (full) hand yet. (As an aside, remember extensions can be granted for more than the two years, which almost everyone has in mind.)
As the concessionaires will not make the requests without previous consultation, we have to presume that the terms of those requests will start opening the government’s mind, even if only by so much. However, much will also hang on an international agenda that it has little scope to influence.
Other than these two leading topics, the new year will keep bringing up the perennial ones that seem intractable most of the time: housing costs, labor inflexibilities, health facilities, infrastructural overload, traffic congestion and air pollution, to name a few noticeable ones.
