Lehman Brothers case was her first political encounter

Lehman Brothers case was her first political encounter


Starry Lee Wai-king’s first encounter with district services began when she was still a university student volunteering for a district councillor.

Encouraged by the people in the local community, Lee enlisted as a candidate and won the 1999 district council election and was re-elected four years later. She was a non-affiliated candidate on both occasions.

Through the district activities, Lee came to know Tsang Yok-sing, who was then Chairman of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, and is now President of the Legislative Council.

The party invited Lee to join them and run in the Kowloon West constituency of the 2004 LegCo election alongside Tsang, who eventually won a seat with the highest number of votes.

In 2008 Tsang moved to the Hong Kong Island constituency, hoping to regain the seat that their late party chairman Ma Lik had occupied. Thus came the opportunity and important task for Lee to head a ticket to compete in the Kowloon West election.

And she won - with more than 39,000 votes, the highest number in a wide open race with a total of 13 competing teams.

Immediately after her election triumph, Lee had to face her very first political encounter: The September 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse that surfaced amid the global financial crisis.

“So before I, being a rookie, could familiarize myself with the work of the legislature, had to handle the mammoth Lehman case,” she recalled.

Given her accounting knowledge, Lee is assigned the finance and economic portfolios by the party caucus. Working at the frontline, she encountered an endless list of victims, especially the devastated elderly who had lost their lifetime savings in the financial crisis.

At that time, the people who had purchased Lehman mini-bonds joined in a desperate public outcry calling on LegCo to investigate the incident.

Initially the party did not support the idea of an investigation, but Lee was sympathetic to the victims who had lost money through their investments in the mini-bonds.

Her influence and strong public support motivated the party caucus to vote for an inquiry with special statutory powers and privileges.

“In my opinion, we could never find out the truth if LegCo did not step into the matter and so there is a need to investigate,” she insisted.

The proceedings are now in their second year.

As a member of the investigating committee, Lee hopes that they can accelerate the process and yield results for the public to see. “The present pace worries me a bit,” she confessed.


12 Mar 2010