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Elizabeth Cheung

Hong Kong will hold its next Legislative Council election on December 7, its second under a “patriots-only” electoral overhaul.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu also said on Tuesday that he had instructed the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau to create comprehensive deployment and emergency plans to ensure the election would be carried out smoothly.
“[The bureau] was asked to work closely with the Electoral Affairs Commission to do proper planning and come up with contingency plans on areas such as publicity, recruitment and training of electoral staff, arrangement of voting and ballot counting, data system and security,” Lee said before his meeting with the government’s key decision-making Executive Council.
He expressed hope that the eighth edition of the Legco election, held every four years, would be conducted in a fair, just and honest manner.
Lee also said he wanted to see seats secured by 90 lawmakers who “love the country, love Hong Kong, have the ability and commitment” to serve the public.
Under the Beijing-decreed electoral shake-up to ensure only “patriots” hold political power, the legislature was expanded from 70 to 90 seats, with the lion’s share of 40 seats going to the Election Committee constituency, picked by the powerful body predominantly occupied by Beijing loyalists which also elects the city’s leader.
Thirty seats were allocated to the trade-based functional constituencies, while the number of directly elected lawmakers from the geographical constituencies was slashed from 35 to 20.
All hopefuls were pre-vetted by officials who determined whether their level of “patriotism” was sufficient.
Lee said on Tuesday that a by-election for the Election Committee subsector would be held on September 7.
He noted that 90 posts needed to be filled among the 967 elected positions on the committee.
The committee, which has 1,500 members including appointed and ex officio ones, is responsible for electing 40 members of Legco and nominating candidates.
The committee comprises 40 subsectors under five sectors.
Lee said the bureau would announce details of the nomination period and arrangement of the two polls in due course.
Permanent residents of Hong Kong aged at least 18 are eligible to be registered as voters. Those who are interested must submit their applications before or on June 2.
Existing voters who need to update their address information in the register must also make an application before the same date.
The first revamped Legco election held in December 2021 ended with a turnout of only 30.2 per cent, the lowest since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. The poll saw 1.35 million voters cast ballots in the geographical constituencies.
Despite central government officials’ repeated assurances that they were not eyeing “political homogeneity” in Hong Kong’s new legislature, the Beijing-friendly camp ended up claiming all but one seat.


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City leader John Lee hopes second Legco poll under ‘patriots-only’ electoral overhaul will be conducted in a ‘fair, just and honest manner’


City leader John Lee hopes second Legco poll under ‘patriots-only’ electoral overhaul will be conducted in a ‘fair, just and honest manner’.


Hong Kong to hold next Legislative Council election on December 7

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}City leader John Lee hopes second Legco poll under ‘patriots-only’ electoral overhaul will be conducted in a ‘fair, just and honest manner’

City leader John Lee hopes second Legco poll under ‘patriots-only’ electoral overhaul will be conducted in a ‘fair, just and honest manner’