Donald Tsang is not your typical Chinese Communist bureaucratic apparatchik.

The chief executive of Hong Kong is a Knight of the British Empire, a devout Roman Catholic who takes time out from meetings with top officials in Beijing to attend daily Mass and a close associate of Lord Patten of Barnes, the last British Governor of Hong Kong, who outraged Beijing by trying to introduce limited democracy to the former colony.

But tomorrow, the diminutive, bow-tie-wearing bureaucrat with a nice line in self-mocking humour will ascend to a full term as Hong Kong’s second ruler since the colony was returned to China ten years ago. Barring an upset of cosmic magnitude Mr Tsang, as he prefers to be known, will be chosen by the 800-strong election committee of the former colony — most of them handpicked allies of Beijing — for a full five-year term.

He was appointed by Beijing two years ago to fill the remainder of the term of Tung Chee Hwa, the first postBritish ruler of Hong Kong, who resigned under pressure from the leaders of the People’s Republic.

Despite the Communist takeover ten years ago and an election that opponents say has been rigged in his favour, Mr Tsang believes that the former colony enjoys more liberty now than it did under British rule. “It’s a freer place now than before, politically and economically,” he said yesterday as he wrapped up campaigning for tomorrow’s election.

“Hong Kong is a much more civilised place, a much more open society and economically much more robust than . . . in 1997.”

The Hong Kong chief noted that the former colony still enjoyed the basic democratic benefits of its British legacy — the rule of law, freedom of the press and religion and a thriving capitalist system. On top of that it had extended free voting for its Parliament in the past ten years. And while the outcome of this election was never in doubt, Mr Tsang said that the campaign he had been forced to fight, against a fierce critic of Beijing, showed that democracy in Hong Kong was advancing. He pledged to introduce proposals to move towards universal suffrage after his expected victory tomorrow.

“[The campaign] has brought the whole democratic process to a new milestone in Hong Kong,” he said. Surprisingly, perhaps, Mr Tsang’s opponent in the election campaign agreed. Alan Leung, the Civic Party candidate, has built his campaign on a vociferous critique of the failure by Mr Tsang to move Hong Kong towards universal suffrage in its election for chief executive.

He said that the US-style televised debates between the two men this month had changed the way people in Hong Kong — and in parts of southern China, where the debates were also seen — viewed politics.

“It was a very historic event for the Chinese people,” he said. “On Chinese soil, flying the five-star red flag, they saw for the first time an incumbent anointed by the authority being challenged by a candidate from the people.”

The campaign was dominated by voters’ concerns about democratic reforms as well as economic issues such as mounting inequality in the booming economy and the serious air pollution problems that have resulted in an almost permanent pall of smog over the island that British sailors seized from China after the First Opium War in 1841.

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