Macau out to Vote!

 Across the small overseas possession of Macau voters came out today in one of the most contentious elections ever. Former Prime Minister Leonel Alberto Alves who swept back to power after his short Prime Ministerial term in 2005 in 2020 defeating the Socialist Party the only party with direct visible connections to a mainland Portuguese Party. Now with his first term coming to an end, nationalists have came out in force to replace him but serious divides within their ranks & a quickly rising middle ground bloc have seriously hurt their chances.

The pre campaign period was uniquely  tumultuous. Antonio Ng a longtime progressive leader in the Nationalist Party finally became fed up with Ho lon Sang and the Nationalist Party with the final straw currently unknown but widely thought to have been Sang’s opposition to a Cantonese Revolt in mainline China. Ng formed the Free Macanese Association a socially and economically liberal party with 2 other disgruntled Nationalist MP’s. Meanwhile the Middle Ground chunk of parliament a group of MP’s who was neither separatist nor nationalist & who broadly supported a strong amount of De Jure autonomy to go with the already significant amount of De-Facto autonomy granted to Macau by Portugal. The main new party within this bloc was founded just recently by businessman & philanthropist Chang Meng Kam an eccentric household name in Macau known for sponsoring nearly all art in the city state. He formed his own party to contest the 2021 elections winning 3 seats & was widely dismissed as simply running a vanity coalition of a few small neighborhood associations to check off a line in his bucket list but his party Forces of Macau has roared to prominence capitalizing off an immigration scare in 2024 though uniquely despite the party’s strong anti immigration stances they can much more be classified as centrist-populist. Kam has uniquely been the only party leader in most of Asia to endorse UBI, universal healthcare & a special tax in casinos to fund it all. 

This campaign has been defined by a few issues mainly immigration which has become a crucial wedge issue after 2 very high profile events when a 15 year old girl was raped  by 2 Indian migrants & then in response a nationalist group beat dozens Indian migrants & killed 3 of them. Public opinion was galvanized against migration but interestingly not down conservative lines. The parties that took the greatest advantage were all mostly moderate & even some liberals. Chang Meng Kam’s Forces of Macau capitalized on it the most unrealing a full plan for migration which included putting a moratorium on all migration from India & Bangladesh, increased inspections at ports & the automatic deportation of all criminals.

Macau heads to the polls this Thursday & we have only described some of their politics but this will surely be a consequential election.