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Protesters march against Hong Kong leader
Posted: 27 January 2013 1750 hrs

	Click to enlarge Photos 1of 1 Protesters demonstrate against Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying during a march in Hong Kong. (AFP PHOTO / LAURENT FIEVET)

HONG KONG: Around 1,000 people took to the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday to protest against the city leader's policy speech,

which they said offered nothing new on tackling a housing crisis and poverty. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying pledged, among other

things, to increase housing supply in the densely populated city and tackle poverty in his January policy address widely seen as an

attempt to halt mass protests against his leadership. Protesters held up a colourful array of banners, some of which portrayed Leung

as a vampire and Pinocchio. "Leung Chun-ying does not have the heart or the ability to solve the problems for the Hong Kong people,"

Icarus Wong, vice-convener of one of the protest organisers, Civil Human Rights Front, told AFP. People were showing their

"disappointment and anger" because his speech offered no new ideas on solving the housing crisis and tackling poverty, Wong said.

Protesters also called for universal suffrage in the former British colony, which returned to China in 1997. Hong Kong maintains a

semi-autonomous status but cannot choose its leader through the popular vote. Beijing has said the chief executive could be directly

elected in 2017 at the earliest, with the legislature following by 2020. Leung, who was chosen by a 1,200-member election committee

dominated by pro-Beijing elites, saw his approval rating plunge to a low of 31 percent, according to an opinion poll released in January

by the University of Hong Kong.

- AFP/xq