Narrow loser in election to tell ICAC of suspicions

The ICAC will be asked to look into suspicions about votes in a constituency won by a rural leader previously named in the election-bribery case of the champion horse trainer Brian Kan Ping-chee. Separately, six voters in a different constituency appeared in court yesterday accused of giving false addresses in last month's district council elections.

The rural leader, Hau Kam-lam, was arrested but has not been charged in the bribery case. Kan was convicted last month.

Hau narrowly won his seat on the Sheung Shui Rural constituency by 82 votes last month, defeating Simon Hau Fuk-tat.

Now Simon Hau says he has found that about 100 ballots are suspect because of problematic residential addresses given by voters.

Simon Hau, who ran as an independent against Hau Kam-lam, said yesterday he would report the case to the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Electoral Affairs Commission within a couple of days, after a study of the voters' registry was completed.

'There are many cases in which I am very sure the people could not have been living [at the addresses they gave],' said Simon Hau, who got 2,211 votes to 2,293 for Hau Kam-lam, who ran for the Beijing-loyalist Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

In one case, 12 adults with seven different surnames claimed they all lived on the ground floor of a flat in Ho Tung Garden, Sheung Shui. In a second case, 11 people with six surnames said they lived in a residence in Hang Tau Village.