‘It’s a miracle’: ex-student leader Nathan Law celebrates new status as Hong Kong’s youngest ever lawmaker
Occupy agitator elected on a promise to work for the city’s ‘self-determination’
From student leader to legislator, Nathan Law Kwun-chung transformed himself into one of the most popular Legislative Council candidates this year – and the youngest ever elected.
That title was previously held by veteran Democrat James To Kun-sun when he was elected in 1991 at the more advanced age of 28.
The 50,818 votes that swept Law into a legislative seat on Hong Kong Island reflected “support as well as trust” he said on Monday as he celebrated the first electoral victory of a student leader of the 2014 Occupy protests.
The [large number of] votes will remind me to do better and not to let people down in the next four years
“It can be described as a miracle that I won,” Law, 23, said. “It was out of my imagination that I won with more than 50,000 votes. The [large number of] votes will remind me to do better and not to let people down in the next four years.”
The reserved and soft-spoken student leader told the Post in June he had never thought of entering politics when he was younger, as he considered it “a dirty game with people fighting among one another for self-interest”.
In April, Law and others founded Demosisto, with Joshua Wong Chi-fung who led the now-disbanded student group, Scholarism.
They pledged to work for the city’s “self-determination”. In its manifesto, the party stated it would hold a referendum in 10 years to let Hongkongers decide their own fate beyond 2047, when the principle of “one country, two systems” officially expires, and would adopt non-violent protest tactics.