Two radical Hong Kong localists await their fate while a third Legco candidate is banned

The fate of all but two high-profile radical localists planning to run in next month’s Legislative Council elections was certain last night, ahead of a briefing by the polling watchdog for validated candidates today.

Edward Leung Tin-kei and his ally Sixtus “Baggio” Leung Chung-hang were still waiting for a reply from the Electoral Affairs Commission as it validated five other localists yesterday and disqualified a third candidate advocating separatism for Hong Kong.

That brought the total number of validated localist candidates to at least nine.

One of them, Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a student leader of the Occupy movement in 2014, accused the watchdog of “political censorship” as it withheld approval for his promotional leaflet in order to seek legal advice over words such as “self-determination” and “civil referendum”.

“If the electoral office doesn’t reply to me tomorrow, we won’t have enough time to get the leaflets printed and we may not be able to mail them to voters before election day,” Law said last night.

Edward Leung added: “The government is playing tricks like this. I have nothing to say.”