Alice Mak (politician)

Alice Mak Mei-kuen BBS, JP (Chinese: 麥美娟, born 1971) is a member of Legislative Council of Hong Kong for the New Territories West constituency, for the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions. She graduated from Department of English of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has been a member of the Kwai Tsing District Council since 1993, and represented the Wai Ying constituency until 2019.

The Honourable Alice Mak Mei-kuen BBS, JP
麥美娟
Member of the Legislative Council
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 October 2012
Preceded by	Wong Kwok-hing
Constituency	New Territories West
Member of the Kwai Tsing District Council
In office 1 October 1994 – 31 December 2019
Preceded by	New constituency
Succeeded by	Sin Ho Fai
Constituency	Wai Ying
Personal details
Born	1971 (age 48–49) Hong Kong
Political party	Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions
Residence	Tsing Yi, New Territories
Alma mater	CNEC Christian College Chinese University of Hong Kong
Occupation	Legislative Councillor

Political career

Mak was handpicked by Wong Kwok-hing to run in the 2012 Hong Kong legislative election.[1][2][3] She came in 8th place after Civic Party's Kwok Ka-ki received the most votes, and was elected to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong with 7.07% electorate support.[4] Mak also participated in the 2016 legislative election, coming in 6th place after popular localist Eddie Chu topped the race with the most votes. She kept her seat on the Legislative Council after receiving 49,680 votes, which represented 8.32% of the electorate.[5]

She lost her seat in the District Council during the 2019 elections following a general rout of pro-Beijing candidates amidst the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.[6] She was defeated by Civic Party's Henry Sin Ho-fai, losing to him with 40.12% of the votes.[7] Mak admitted that she, along with other pro-establishment candidates, lost because the Hong Kong government "provoked many people with its way of administering".[8]

Controversies

Insulting Carrie Lam with profanities

During the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, Chief Executive Carrie Lam called for a meeting on 18 June with pro-Beijing lawmakers in Government House to explain her reasoning for suspending the controversial extradition bill. It was reported that Mak berated the chief executive for around five minutes using Cantonese profanities until Lam appeared to be in tears, to which Mak retorted in tears, "what use is crying now? You know how to cry, I do too!".[9] The account was confirmed by a leaked conversation between pro-Beijing lawmaker Christopher Cheung and Independent Police Complaints Council chairman Anthony Neoh, who did not realise their microphones were still on during their breaks.[10]

In 19 June, Mak was asked about the truthfulness of the account, but Mak refused to reveal the details of the meeting, stressing that the pro-Beijing camp does not support the government blindly.[11] Hong Kong's two civil service unions, the Hong Kong Chinese Civil Servants’ Association and the Federation of Civil Service Unions, urged Mak to address the accusation and apologise to Carrie Lam if the reports were true.[10]

References

1. "2008–2011 Kwai Tsing District Council Members". Kwai Tsing District Council. 2011. Archived from the original on 2012-12-18. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
2. "Mak, Alice Mei Kuen". Webb-site.com. 2012. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
3. Ip, Kelly (7 September 2012). "FTU old guard lead young to battle". The Standard. Archived from the original on 2014-02-21. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
4. "LegCo Election overall results". www.info.gov.hk. Retrieved 2020-07-19.
5. "2.2 million people cast their votes for 2016 Legislative Council election". Lifewire. 2016-09-05. Retrieved 2020-07-19.
6. "2019 District Councils Election – Election Results (Kwai Tsing)". Government of Hong Kong.
7. "2019 District Councils Election - Election Results (Kwai Tsing)". www.elections.gov.hk. Retrieved 2020-07-19.
8. Pao, Jeff (2019-11-25). "Lam blamed, by losers as well as winners". Asia Times. Retrieved 2020-07-19.
9. "麥美娟向林鄭爆粗「X街」 建制派怨氣大爆發". 星島日報. 2019-06-18. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
10. "Did lawmaker shout profanity at Carrie Lam? Unions demand answer". South China Morning Post. 2019-06-22. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
11. "傳麥美娟閉門會議上「怒x林鄭」　麥美娟拒透露會面內容：建制派無盲撐政府". 香港經濟日報. 2019-06-19. Retrieved 2019-06-19.

Political offices
New constituency	Member of Kwai Tsing District Council Representative for Wai Ying 2000–2019	Succeeded by Sin Ho-fai
Legislative Council of Hong Kong
Preceded by Wong Kwok-hing	Member of Legislative Council Representative for New Territories West 2012–present	Incumbent
Order of precedence
Preceded by Kenneth Leung Member of the Legislative Council	Hong Kong order of precedence Member of the Legislative Council	Succeeded by Kwok Ka-ki Member of the Legislative Council