Disqualified Legco candidate files petition with High Court asking if New Territories West lawmakers were duly elected
Localist Andy Chan Ho-tin is first to challenge polls within two-month period counting from gazette of results
The first candidate to be disqualified from last Sunday’s Legislative Council elections over his pro-independence stance also became the first of the lot to challenge the government through an election petition yesterday.
“After that, there might be a re-election,” the Hong Kong National Party convenor said.
Sunday’s polls returned nine candidates from a list of 20 in the constituency, with activist Eddie Chu Hoi-dick crowned the “king of votes”, after Chan and Nationalist Hong Kong’s Nakade Hitsujiko were disqualified on similar grounds.
Chan, 25, is the first to pursue such a course of against the Electoral Affairs Commission within the stipulated two-month period.
On July 30, he became the first of six candidates to be barred from running after the returning officer asserted that his “claim, support and promotion of the independence of Hong Kong are mutually exclusive with the legislative intent” and the Basic Law.