Michael Chugani picks up his pen again in United States

Veteran journalist Michael Chugani has returned as a political commentator due to “bizarre comments” made by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor about voter turnout. 

Back in April, Chugani said he wished to take a break to think about the “red line” of reporting and resigned from different positions including the host of TVB program Straight Talk. 

In an opinion piece published on Thursday on CitizenNews, the Indian-American who was born and raised in Hong Kong said he had arrived in the US four months ago and will start writing commentaries from there. 

In the piece entitled “The thrill of picking up my pen again, Chugani said he “had to pick up my pen after a long absence” because of the “bizarre comments” made by Lam and Legislative Council election candidate Andrew Fung Wai-kwong. 

He cited Lam, who told China's Global Times a low voter turnout rate for the Legislative Council election implies that the public is happy with the government's work and credibility, and that they want no big changes. 

“This alone shows Lam, an overpaid and cloistered bureaucrat, is clueless about how ordinary people think.” 

Chugani then recalled the public's memory on Lam when she was still a chief executive election candidate in 2017, who was caught on camera not knowing how to use an Octopus card or where to buy toilet paper. 

“If a low turnout means nothing, why spend millions of taxpayer dollars in newspaper advertisements to urge people to vote?” he asked rhetorically as well. 

He asked Lam to forgive him if she has been offended, adding that he believed he didn't abuse his freedom of speech. 

On the other hand, Chugani said he opposes both colonization and whitewashing history after Fung said in a election forum that Hong Kong should decolonize by eliminating the legacy of British rule. 

He asked Fung to shame patriots who still hold a British passport as well.