The Honourable Sir Donald Tsang Yam-Kuen
On 25 March 2007, Tsang was re-elected as Chief Executive in a contested small-circle election for the post for a second and final term, from 2007 to 2012.

Early life and family
Tsang joined the civil service in January 1967, and he has held positions in many different government departments, ranging from finance and trade to policies relating to the transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China.
From 1981 to 1982 Tsang studied in the United States, where he completed a Master of Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also received honorary doctorates from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Hong Kong. He was attached to the Asian Development Bank in Manila in 1977 for a year and worked on water supply and railway development projects in the Philippines and Bangladesh.
As Deputy Secretary of the General Duties Branch between 1985 and 1989, Tsang was responsible for the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the promotion of the "British Nationality Selection Scheme". He served as Director-General of Trade between 1991 and 1993, and was responsible for all facets of trade negotiation and administration affecting Hong Kong. In May 1993, he was promoted to Secretary for the Treasury, where he was responsible for the overall allocation of resources, the taxation system and the cost effectiveness of the Hong Kong government.
In September 1995, Tsang was appointed Financial Secretary, becoming the first Chinese person to hold the position. He was created a Knight Commander in the Order of the British Empire in 1997 for his long-time service to Hong Kong, being knighted by Prince Charles in Government House hours before the handover. Tsang was also awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal by the Hong Kong government in June 2002. During his term as Hong Kong's Financial Secretary, Hong Kong's public spending grew steadily as public revenue remained robust and government budget in surplus. Public expenditure to GDP rose to as high as 23%, though still the lowest among developed economies. He also approved a raise in civil servants' salary at the beginning of the Asian economic crisis. The salary raise was finally reversed, aligning civil servants' salary to 1997 levels.
During his six-year tenure, he steered Hong Kong through the Asian financial crisis that swept across the region in 1997 and 1998. He worked with Joseph Yam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and waged war on the speculators attacking the Hong Kong currency peg.
On May 1, 2001, former Chief Secretary for Administration Anson Chan resigned her post, citing personal reasons. Tung then appointed Tsang to become the Chief Secretary and invited a civil service outsider, Antony Leung, to take up the post of Financial Secretary.
As Chief Secretary, Tsang ranked second to the then Chief Executive of Hong Kong Tung Chee Hwa, advising him on matters of policy and deputising for him during his absence. He was also a member of the Tung's inner cabinet, the Executive Council, which is also the highest policy-making body in Hong Kong. He assumed the post of acting Chief Executive when Tung's resignation was approved by the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China on March 12, 2005.

Civil service
Main article: Tung Chee Hwa's resignation
According to . Mr Michael Suen. the Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, became Acting Chief Secretary for Administration as soon as Tsang's resignation was accepted by the Central People's Government.

Serving as acting Chief Executive
Tsang's resignation as Chief Secretary was accepted by the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China on June 2, 2005. He immediately established an Election Office, with Legislative Council (LegCo) member and chairman of the Bank of East Asia, David Li Kwok-po, as his election campaign chairman. Tsang claimed that his agenda could be summed up as one of "Resolute, pragmatic action". He also mentioned that his philosophy of governance was the reason he had decided to run in the election. He said, "I would like to share with you my vision for Hong Kong, and how I will put my philosophy into practice after I am elected."
Tsang instantly became the frontrunner in the race to succeed Tung, due to his long-time experience and high approval ratings. However, some commentators feared that his close association with the past British colonial administration would lead Beijing to distrust him. Tsang, however, won the support of a wide spectrum of society ranging from pro-democracy groups to business tycoons and this appeared to outweigh the misgivings of certain members of the communist hierarchy and their supporters within Hong Kong.
Accordingly, Tsang gained the support of the Central People's Government and his campaign ran without a hitch. On June 15, he handed in his nomination form which bore the signatures of 674 of the approximately 800 members of Election Committee. Later in the evening, the Returning Officer, Madam Justice Carlye Chu Fun Ling vetted the nomination form and determined that his nomination as a candidate in the election was valid.
During the Chief Executive election campaign, Donald Tsang received about HK$27.33 million sponsorship for the campaign, about 20% of which came from the businessmen from the property sector, while Tung Chee Hwa received only one third of this amount for the second Chief Executive Election. Although Donald Tsang stated publicly that each sponsor could not sponsor in excess of hundred-thousand Hong Kong dollars, some of the businessmen tried to sponsor him in different names, for example, Stanley Ho from Shun Tak Group and Lee Shau Kee from Henderson Land Development each sponsored HK$1 million under their family members' names. In the Chief Executive election campaign, Donald Tsang used only HK$4.12 million of the sponsorship, which was HK$2 million less than the amount used by Tung Chee Hwa in his second Chief Executive Election. The remaining HK$23.21 million dollars would be donated to 14 charitable organizations.
On June 21, 2005, he was officially appointed Chief Executive of the HKSAR by the State Council of the Central People's Government to complete the remainder of Tung's term, which ends on June 30, 2007. Tsang has used Government House, as his residence.

Chief Executive Election Campaign

Chief Executive of Hong Kong
After 80% of fish from the mainland China was found to have Malachite green, forcing many fish stalls to close, fishermen and businessmen criticized the Tsang administration for acting too slowly. Subsequently, the approval rating of Tsang and his administration fell polls.
Fearing H5N1 bird flu would came back to Hong Kong one day, Tsang announced that free fresh chicken sale would be replaced by a system of central slaughtering starting from 2009. A slaughter house will be built in Sheung Shui.

Food safety
On August 30, 2005, Tsang announced that the Guangdong Provincial Government invited all 60 members from the Legislative Council to visit Guangdong between September 25 to September 26, 2005. This was the first chance for most of the pro-democrats such as Martin Lee to visit the mainland China since 1989.
Recently, Tsang has talked of discriminatory treatment of political parties and politicians, describing their relationships with him as either intimate or distant. This is what is known as the policy of friend-or-foe dichotomy (親疏有別). Of This caused widespread criticisms from the pro-democracy camp.

Relations with pan-democrats
On November 30, he televised appeal for support on the electoral reform package. Opposing the package publicly, thousands of Hong Kong people demanding immediate universal suffrage(63,000 as reported by the police, 81,000 - 98,000 by HKU-POP research team, at least 250,000 by the organisers) demonstrated against the reform package four days later. It was clear that Tsang would not change the reform package which was supported by about 60% of the population.
On December 21, the Legislative vetoed his reform proposal as the government failed to get support from more than two third councillors. Some lawyers in Beijing said that if the problem can't be solved, Donald Tsang has the power to dissolve the Legco under the Basic Law.

Political reform
Daniel Heung, Tsang's cousin and the chairman of the Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education, was awarded a Silver Bauhinia Star by Donald Tsang in 2005. It was discovered in August 2006 that Heung had converted a warehouse site in Shatin which he rented from the government in 1983 into a private residence. It was alleged that rent would have cost about HK$840,000 a year as residential property instead of the annual lease payments of HK$200,000 a year over 16 years of his tenancy.

Economic policies
Tsang has been criticized for not doing enough to improve Hong Kong's environment. In recent years poor air quality has been an increasing concern for people in Hong Kong, with pollutants from factories and power stations in China's industrial hinterland mixing with the fumes of the region's growing fleet of vehicles and wafting into the city on prevailing winds.The city has fallen in the rankings in several quality of life indices and there are worries that foreign firms will relocate to cleaner cities such as Singapore. Concerns over the pollution's effect on public health and the tourism industry are also rising. In mid-2006 Tsang launched the "Action Blue Sky" campaign and outlined a comprehensive plan to tackle air pollution in Hong Kong and in collaboration with the neighbouring Guangdong Province. Scepticism however remained among the expatriate population of Hong Kong and, in late November 2006, they ridiculed Tsang for citing the long life expectancy of Hong Kong residents as evidence of Hong Kong's high quality of life relative to other major cities in the East Asian region. .

Trivia

Politics of Hong Kong
Alan Leong