Nine Hong Kong democracy activists banned from contesting seats in China’s legislature
Elections to choose Hong Kong deputies to the National People’s Congress now require candidates to swear allegiance to the Chinese constitution
Nine Hong Kong democracy activists have been banned from the race to elect 36 deputies to China’s National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislative body.
The move is in line with an unprecedented new rule that says candidates aspiring to represent the city in the NPC must swear to uphold the Chinese constitution and the “one country, two systems” principle under which Hong Kong is governed.
Civic Party lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki, pro-independence activist Yeung Ke-cheong and seven supporters of Hong Kong’s Occupy democracy protests of 2014 had their candidacies invalidated. A 10th candidate was disqualified because he did not hand in any nomination forms.
The decisions were made on Wednesday morning by the 19-member presidium that oversees the poll, which will be held on Tuesday next week. The body is chaired by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and its members include two of her predecessors, Leung Chun-ying and Tung Chee-hwa.
In total, 49 candidates will run for the 36 seats. They include two pro-democracy figures, Roger Wong Hoi-fung and Henry Lam, who in March joined Hong Kong’s pan-democratic camp in nominating John Tsang Chun-wah and Woo Kwok-hing to contest Carrie Lam in the city’s leadership poll.