from attacks by hedge funds led by George Soros who he dubbed "crocodiles". He joined hand with Joseph Yam, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and bought over $15 billion in Hong Kong stock to defend Hong Kong's exchange rate and to make the government the biggest shareholder in many blue chip firms. Tsang's action successfully led to the retreat of the hedge funds and earned his reputation internationally. Chief Secretary In 2001, Tsang succeeded Anson Chan who retired citing personal reasons to be the Chief Secretary for Administration, the second-ranking position in the government. It was widely believed that Chan resigned from the government in protest against Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's introduction of the Principal Officials Accountability System, which made the capacity of the Chief Secretary from civil servant to political appointee. Under the new system, the power of the Chief Secretary as the head of the civil service was largely taken away by the Chief Executive and all ministers would only report to the Chief Executive directly. Donald Tsang found his major task as Chief Secretary was to implement Tung's order to launch a "Team Clean Campaign" to clean up the city in May 2003 after the SARS outbreak. As he was generally regarded as being sidelined by Tung, Tsang was untainted by major policy blunders, such as the controversy over the legislation of the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 which led to a historic massive demonstration on 1 July 2003. He remained topping in popularity polls among all the officials in Hong Kong as Chief Secretary. Chief Executive bid On 11 March 2005, incumbent Tung Chee-hwa announced his resignation, citing poor health. Tung's resignation was approved by the central government the next day and Tsang took over becoming the acting Chief Executive. After Tung's resignation, Tsang was tipped as Beijing's favoured next Chief Executive. On the afternoon of 25 May 2005, Tsang resigned as Chief Secretary and announced his Chief Executive candidacy on 2 June 2005 after his resignation was accepted by the central government. He was elected unopposed by the 800-member Election Committee on 16 June 2005 and was formally appointed by the central government as the Chief Executive on 21 June 2005. However, the term of the Chief Executive was disputed, which led to the interpretation of the Basic Law by the National People's Congress Standing Committee on 27 April to clarify