Why Hong Kong’s election features only one candidate
Replacing Hong Kong’s leader is a complicated, closeddoor affair that epitomises the central problem facing the Asian financial hub: How to balance the public’s desire for autonomy with China’s demands for control?
The city’s Basic Law, which came into effect the day the British left, contains the promise of a popular vote some day, but electoral reforms imposed from Beijing in 2021 made that goal even more distant. In the end, an elite group of just 1,500 people who represent business, interest groups and, above all, China’s Communist Party will choose the successor to Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Sunday, May 8.
An ex-cop and the city’s former No 2 official, John Lee, is the only nominee - the first time in two decades Hong Kong has presented a single candidate.
1. What did China agree to before the handover?
The Basic Law, or miniconstitution, codified the joint declaration signed by the governments of China and Britain in 1984 in Beijing. It enshrined the “one country, two systems” principle, which promised to give the city for 50 years a high degree of autonomy and protected its unique rights, such as to free speech and assembly - rights not found on the mainland.
It also had the “ultimate aim” of electing Hong Kong’s leader by popular vote, after a candidate had been agreed on by “a broadly representative nominating committee”.
2. How did Hong Kong used to pick its leader?
While the campaigning looked a lot like any mayoral election, with stump speeches, rallies and policy platforms, the voting was done by just 1,200 people on an Election Committee. That body was composed of representatives from sectors covering business and industry, white-collar professions, grassroots organisations and legislators.
Several of Hong Kong’s billionaires also made the cut. The system was designed so China’s favored candidate prevailed, but it was sometimes close.
Former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying was famously elected in 2012 with a slim victory of just 689 votes, a number that became a derisive nickname for his lack of popular support in the city of 7.5 million people. Lam got 777 votes in 2017 to defeat John Tsang, who held a wide lead in public opinion polls and was largely backed by the pro-democracy camp. Still, the system was the closest thing to a
public vote for an executive post in China.
3. What’s different now?
The Election Committee was expanded last year and given new vetting powers to ensure only “patriots” who “respect” Communist Party rule can run for office.
More than one-third of the now1,500 members will be handpicked by pro-Beijing groups. Directly elected district councilors have been dropped entirely, and in the professional sectors there will be more corporate voting, slashing the number of individuals who cast a ballot. (Critics say law firms are far more likely than individual lawyers, for example, to vote in line with China, where companies have business interests.)
Steps also were taken to curb the influence of the city’s property tycoons, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper.