The Frontier cuts down on fliers in New Territories East campaign
Candidates running for The Frontier in New Territories East are adopting green tactics for next month's election, sending just one promotional pamphlet to each household.
Emily Lau Wai-hing, who leads The Frontier's ticket, said the measure could help reduce the use of more than 300,000 adverts, and save about HK$420,000 in postal charges, which would have come from public money.
New Territories East constituency has more than 820,000 voters spread over nearly 520,000 households.
Ms Lau said it would be a waste if more than one advert was sent to the same household, and urged voters to circulate the adverts to family members. She admitted the green campaign might put their election campaign at risk because some voters might not be reached, or could think they were being ignored.
But she said the action would be worthwhile, and asked the government and other candidates to follow suit.
The Democratic Party ticket in the constituency, led by Andrew Cheng Kar-foo, has launched a 'no fliers' campaign to reduce the use of paper.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong's New Territories East branch yesterday sought to defuse the controversy over the treating of village representatives to food by submitting evidence to the Electoral Affairs Commission.
Lau Kong-wah, who leads the party ticket in the constituency, said they were aware a complaint had been made about the incident and had taken the initiative to co-operate and provide material.
Questions were raised about the ethical conduct of Mr Lau's campaigning on Saturday during an event at which village representatives and potential voters in the constituency were treated to a meal. On Monday, another candidate in the constituency, the Democratic Party's Wong Sing-chi, submitted a complaint to the commission.
Yesterday, Mr Lau and the second candidate on his ticket, Gary Chan Hak-kan, submitted a video recording of their event, along with receipts for the cost of the food, amounting to HK$385. They also submitted minutes from a rural committee meeting on June 20, showing a motion was passed unanimously to support the DAB ticket. A month later rural leaders criticised the DAB for forcing the Heung Yee Kuk leader, Lau Wong-fat, to give way to a DAB candidate in the district councils functional constituency.
Mr Lau said the minutes showed the village representatives at their event were supporters, and his understanding was that as long as they were considered campaign supporters, then there was no problem.
But Mr Wong said such minutes were not official consent forms.
