Hong Kong: black hats versus Civic Party?

Post of Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Adminstrative Region is up for grabs in the summer of 2007. The current CE is (Sir) Donald "Bow Tie" Tsang. He is almost certainly going to go forward for re-election.

But not unopposed. Hong Kong's Civic Party, which is growing in strength as the Democratic Party fades away, is putting forth its own candidate, Alan Leong.

The civic spirit, the HK spirit: Civic Party

This is a good thing. Even if Leong has no chance of winning, Hong Kong deserves better than an un-challenged Beijing shoo-in.

Expect dirty tricks. What American president Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder's political consultant, aggressive strategist, mentor of Karl Rove, and master of the black arts Lee Atwater (the Darth Vader of the Republican Party) called, somewhat inelegantly, "ratfucking".

For instance, the Civic Party last week claimed its computer system had been hacked. Certainly, some supposedly internal Civic Party stuff is now circulating on Chinese-language Hong Kong blogs and forums.

EastSouthWestNorth reports that:

The Doctor Report blog entry of December 4, 2006 contains the itemization of media "promotion" fees:

Apple Daily: HK$ 50,000 (discounted)
Ming Pao: HK% 80,000 (discounted)
South China Morning Post: HK$ 189,379 (to be confirmed)
Hong Kong Economic Times: (awaiting reply)

By way of comment, EastSouthWestNorth adds:

Here is what I don't understand -- what exactly is a "promotion" fee paid to a newspaper? I do not believe that there are any advertisements for Alan Leong at this time. Does this mean that the newpapers are getting paid for editorial content favorable to Alan Leong? That would have meant the end of journalism as I understand it . . .

Well, this could be an example of "ratfucking". In this instance, the wholesale creation, or doctoring, or spinning, of documents. By unknown black hats.

Or, none of the above.

So, yeah, anyhow, taking the bait, what is a media "promotion" fee? Anyone know?