Although incumbent Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying announced, two days before the election, that he would not be standing, the pro-democrats, whose campaign theme was opposition to Leung serving a second term, won a record quarter of the seats on the EC under the banner of "Democrats 300+" on a nearly 20 per cent surge in turnout over 2011.[1]
Background
The pro-democracy camp pocketed 205 seats in the 1,200-strong Election Committee and nominated Albert Ho of the Democratic Party to run against Leung Chun-ying and Henry Tang in 2012. The main goal for the pro-democrats in this election was to grab more than 300 seats to increase the chance of blocking the incumbent Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to re-elected. In order to do that, the camp tended not to send a candidate in the election and become a "kingmaker" by boosting the chance for an alternative establishment candidate.[2]
The six pro-democrats elected to the Legislative Council in functional constituencies in September, including Edward Yiu who took the seat in the traditional pro-Beijing sector and Leung Chun-ying's stronghold Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape, formed an alliance called the Professionals Guild to coordinate candidates to contest in the Election Committee election. The victory in the Legislative Council functional constituencies encouraged the pro-democrats to take a more progressive strategy in the professional sector, in which the pro-democrats traditionally had more advantages.[2] The pro-democrat professionals and activists also formed a loose coalition called "Democrats 300+" hoping to snatch over 300 seats in the committee.[3]
Some 300 candidates had also voiced opposition towards Leung Chun-ying re-election.[3] Only 189 out of 305 of those who nominated Leung in 2012 sought to join the Election Committee this year.[4] On 9 December, two days before the election, Leung announced he would not seek re-election, citing family reasons.[5]
Composition
The Election Committee consisted of 1,034 members elected from 35 subsectors, 60 members nominated by the Religious subsector and 106 ex officio members. (Hong Kong deputies from the National People's Congress and Legislative Council of Hong Kong members). As the term of office commenced on 1 February 2016, the 1,200 member Election Committee was formed by 38 Election Committee Subsectors:[6]
The nomination period was from 8 to 14 November 2016. A total number of 1,539 nominations were validated, while ten nominations were ruled invalid by the Returning Officers which included the former Chinese University of Hong Kong Students' Union president Tommy Cheung Sau-yin who led the seven-member "Student United 2017" and six members of the pro-democratic "Progressive Engineering" due to their "insufficient connection" with the Higher Education and Engineering subsectors.[7]
One nomination from the 18-member Import and Export subsector was also invalidated, which made the number of the nominated candidates of the Import and Export subsector one less than the number of seats allocated to it. Since there was no provision in the Chief Executive Election Ordinance which allowed a by-election to fill the remaining seat, the seat would be vacant.[8]
Among the 1,539 candidates, 300 of those were returned uncontested and voting for the 12 subsectors and the Sports sub-subsector would not be held.[8] For the six designated bodies of the religious subsector, four of them were uncontested. The Returning Officer arranged lots drawing for the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Christian Council in order to decide members of the Election Committee among the nominees.[8]
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
91
51
51
uncontested
IV
Heung Yee Kuk
147
35
26
133
90.48
IV
Hong Kong and Kowloon District Councils
208
66
57
199
95.67
IV
New Territories District Councils
223
62
60
187
83.86
IV
Sub-total for Fourth Sector
669
320
300
519
77.58
TOTAL
246,440
1,705
1,199
107,841
46.53
Note: *One nomination from the 18-member Import and Export subsector was invalidated, which made the number of the nominated candidates of the Import and Export subsector one less than the number of seats allocated to it. Since there was no provision in the Chief Executive Election Ordinance which allowed a by-election to fill the remaining seat, the seat would be vacant.
The election saw a nearly 20 percent point increase of turnout compared to the 2011 election. The pro-democracy camp took a record quarter of the seat in the elections, with the help of the landslide victories in the Second sector. Clean sweeps were seen in the Legal, Education, Higher Education, Health Services, Information Technology and Social Welfare subsectors, as well as victories in other subsectors. The pro-democrats under the banner of "Democrats 300+" won 325 seats in total if included the 27 ex officio Legislative Council members.[1]
First sector
The pro-Beijing camp maintained its stronghold in the First sector. Liberal Party honorary chairman James Tien, key advocate of the so-called "ABC" – Anyone But CY Leung – campaign, received high votes in the Commercial (First) subsector along with his mentee Joseph Chan Ho-lim, each bagging more than 400 votes from corporate electors.[1] Liberal Party chairman Tommy Cheung, Legislative Council member for the Cateringfunctional constituency also had his 17-member candidate list elected uncontestedly in the Catering subsector. Vincent Fang, the party ex-leader and former Wholesale and Retail LegCo representative also won all 18 seats against a two-member list led by Democratic Party's Au Nok-hin.
The pro-democrats scored landslide victories in the professional subsectors. The Academics in Support of Democracy ticket led by Occupy Central co-founders Chan Kin-man and Benny Tai seized all the seats in the Higher Education subsector.[1] The two tickets led by pro-democrat politicians including Civic Party's Alan Leong and legal scholar Eric Cheung Tat-ming also won all the 30 seats in the Legal subsector. The other subsectors swept by the pro-democrats included Education and Information Technology subsector in which former Democratic Party legislators Cheung Man-kwong and Sin Chung-kai became the biggest winners.
The pro-democrats saw increase of their seats in the Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape and the Accountancy subsectors, and secured at least half of the seats in the Engineering and Medical subsectors.[1] The three pro-democrat candidates who were under the banner of the "Democrats 300+" were also elected in the traditional pro-Beijing stronghold of Chinese Medicine subsector for the first time.
Third sector
While all 60 seats in the Agriculture and Fisheries subsector were taken by pro-Beijing candidates uncontestedly, the pro-democrats won all of the seats in the 60-member Social Welfare subsector despite the infighting among different pro-democrat tickets. Pro-democracy filmmaker Derek Yee emerged as the only candidate from his eight-member list to secure a seat in the 15-seat Performing Arts sub-subsector, which had always been monopolised by conservative pro-Beijing forces. The remaining 14 seats in the sub-subsector were taken by the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association led by Beijing-friendly Crucindo Hung Cho-sing, whose ticket included actors and filmmakers Raymond Wong Pak-ming and Eric Tsang.[1] The 15 members of the pro-democracy group ARTicipants led by songwriter Adrian Chow Pok-yin were all defeated in the Culture sub-subsector against the pro-Beijing 15-member list which included veteran actress Liza Wang.[1]
Fourth sector
The 51-member Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference subsector was returned uncontestedly, while the Heung Yee Kuk subsector was seen in a rare contest. The pro-democrats contested in the Hong Kong and Kowloon District Councils subsector with a nine-member ticket but all of them were defeated by the pro-Beijing District Councillors.
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