Pro-Beijing lobby selects loyalist Lam
A BEIJING-BACKED civil servant, Carrie Lam, has been chosen to be Hong Kong’s next leader amid accusations that Beijing is meddling and denying the financial hub a more populist leader perhaps better able to defuse political tension.
The majority of the Chinaruled city’s 7.3 million people have no say in deciding their leader, who is chosen from several candidates by a 1200-person “election committee” stacked with pro-Beijing and pro-establishment loyalists.
Ms Lam, who will become Hong Kong’s first female chief executive when she takes office on July 1, won 777 votes compared with 365 for her closest rival, former financial secretary John Tsang, who polls show is more popular.
There were several invalid protest ballots, including one that carried an obscenity.
“Hong Kong, our home, is suffering from quite a serious divisiveness,” Ms Lam said in a victory speech.
“My priority will be to heal the divide and to ease the frustration, and to unite our society to move forward.”
Scuffles broke out outside the voting centre between protesters and police, who used metal barricades to keep the demonstrations well away.
The activists denounced Beijing’s “interference” amid widespread reports of lobbying of voters to back Ms Lam, rather than Mr Tsang.
Some protesters chanted “I want universal suffrage” and unfurled yellow umbrellas, a symbol of the civil disobedience “umbrella movement”, when the result was announced.