‘Tuna sandwich’ protest against CY Leung kicks off lively polling day for Hong Kong

The city swung into full election mode on Sunday, with patients in hospitals asking for special permission to head to polling stations and celebrities descending on busy streets to canvass support for their favourite candidates.

Streets were festooned with colourful campaign banners, and the sound of audio recordings from candidates echoed through high-rise housing blocks.

Watch: Candidates made a last-ditch effort to secure votes on election day

Polling day kicked off with a “tuna sandwich” protest against Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. As the Hong Kong leader arrived at a polling station in Central early in the morning, he was greeted by protesters from the League of Social Democrats including the party’s chairman Avery Ng Man-yuen, a Kowloon West constituency candidate. Ng allegedly threw a tuna sandwich at Leung, who managed to avoid being hit.

The polls were the first general Legislative Council elections since the pro-democracy Occupy protests paralysed parts of the city in 2014.

Since then a burgeoning “localist” faction has burst onto the city’s political scene, providing voters with a choice apart from the traditional pan-democratic and pro-establishment camps.

Social worker Candie Wong, who had been staying in a Wan Chai hospital for a month for treatment for a blood infection, asked her doctor to grant her a one-hour trip to a polling station.