In TIME Asia, Austin Ramzy (’03) writes about the re-election prospects for Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang. Hint: They’re pretty good.

The campaign headquarters of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, is unusual for an election nerve center. For one thing, it’s clean, and quiet: no spilled coffee, no half-eaten pizza slices, no one cursing into a phone. The staff are unfailingly polite, and they don’t run—they walk. As befits Hong Kong’s profile as a financial town above all else, Tsang’s election office is in a commercial tower, on the 28th floor. (Hong Kong people consider 28 to be an advantageous number because, in Cantonese, it sounds like “easy to prosper.”) In case that isn’t powerful enough joss, a large Chinese character written on gold paper stands above the reception counter; it’s the word “luck.”

Tsang doesn’t need any. The 62-year-old is running for a second term as Chief Executive—the strangely apt title for the head of Hong Kong’s government. But the vote is restricted to the 800 members of an electoral college who are drawn from assorted business, professional and social groups. Most of them tend to bend whichever way the wind from Beijing is blowing. And, these days, it is blowing in Tsang’s favor. Though he is facing a challenger from the city’s democratic camp—lawyer and lawmaker Alan Leong—Tsang already commands 641 nominations from the Election Committee, and will defeat Leong handily in the ballot, which takes place on March 25.

Read the full article here.