Chief executive contender Leung Chun-ying was a covert Communist Party member, a former party member claimed yesterday. But Leung's campaign office quickly called the accusation unfounded and reiterated that he has never been affiliated with any political party.
A week before the city's top leadership race, the former Communist Party member Florence Leung Mo-han, 73, returned from Vancouver to appeal to Election Committee members yesterday not to vote for Leung Chun-ying for the sake of Hong Kong.
At the launch of her Chinese-language memoir My Time in Hong Kong's Underground Communist Party, Florence said she inferred from Leung Chun-ying's high position in the Basic Law Consultative Committee that he was a fellow party member.
In 1988, Leung, then aged 34, was elected the committee's secretary general.
'According to the rules of the Chinese Communist Party, such a position must be assumed by a party member. [Leung Chun-ying's predecessor] Mao Junnian must [therefore] also be a party member, as well as Leung Chun-ying,' she said.
She said Leung Chun-ying's recent vague remarks about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown also suggested that he belonged to the party.
Earlier, Leung Chun-ying sidestepped questions on the 1989 crackdown in Beijing, saying he loved the country and the people, as many other Hongkongers did.