Macau on Friday will welcome a new leader who has criticised the “barbaric expansion” of the casino industry and vowed to diversify the city’s economy to align it with China’s development goals.
Sam Hou-fai, 62, is set to be sworn in as Macau’s next chief executive on Friday by Chinese President Xi Jinping, after a one-horse race in October where he was chosen by a committee of 400 pro-establishment figures.
His inauguration will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the former Portuguese colony being handed over to China under a “One Country, Two Systems” framework that promised autonomy and a separate legal system.
Sam spent his entire post-handover career as president of Macau’s Court of Final Appeal, the city’s top court.
Despite that, he has admitted to being relatively unknown in the city — which he said was proof that judges were independent.
Unlike the three chief executives before him, Sam was born in mainland China and does not have a background in business. He moved to Macau in 1986 to work for the colonial administration.
Beijing has for years ordered Macau to diversify its economy and grow non-gaming industries. But as of November, gaming-related taxes still make up 81 percent of government revenue.
Announcing his leadership bid in August, Sam said there had been “a period of disorderly development and barbaric expansion” by the tourism and casino industries.
“This situation of having one dominant industry is unfavourable to the long-term development of Macau and brings a huge negative impact,” he said at a press conference.
He later dialed down his criticism and said that the gaming sector will not shrink or be shut down under his administration, adding that “healthy and orderly development” was needed.
Sam, who studied law at China’s elite Peking University and later in Portugal, rose through the ranks as Macau’s last colonial government sought to localise its civil service in the late 1980s.
Jorge Rangel, the ex-minister in charge of that localisation effort, recalled Sam as a “quiet type of person” who was “very young when he was appointed senior judge in Macau”.
Having joined the judiciary in 1995, Sam was fast-tracked to the top post just four years later and he “accepted his position very well.”
“He knew that it was a very big challenge for him,” Rangel told AFP.
As top judge, Sam presided over trials of corrupt Macau officials.
Dissent stifled
When neighbouring Hong Kong was rocked by huge pro-democracy protests in 2019, Beijing also clamped down on dissent in Macau — a trend reflected in the courts.
“(Sam’s) judicial style is literalism: he will rule based on how the law was written,” University of Macau scholar Ieong Meng-u told AFP.
But in some cases, “the authorities had already decided to do something, and they needed to find the legal grounds”, Ieong said.
In 2021, Sam was widely panned for a ruling that outlawed a peaceful candlelight vigil held to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The same year, Sam and his fellow judges ruled in favour of the Macau authorities’ decision to disqualify 21 pro-democracy candidates from running for the city’s legislature.
As a policymaking novice, Sam will have to contend with an economy that has not fully recovered from the heavy blow dealt by the coronavirus pandemic and long-running livelihood concerns.
Despite being a native of Zhongshan in southern China, Sam has described himself as a “being from old Macau” and dismissed criticisms that he is out of touch.
On the streets of Macau, one resident told AFP that he was hopeful about Sam’s administration.
“I believe that he has much better administrative and judicial experiences, unlike his predecessors,” said Lau, a retired civil servant in his seventies who only gave his surname.
“He will run a tighter ship and be fairer, at least that’s my hope.”