A record 292 candidates will battle it out for just 54 seats in next month's election for the expanded Legislative Council.
As the two-week nomination period closed last night, 219 candidates had signed up to fight for the 35 directly elected seats. They will run on 69 slates, up from the 53 which contested the last election, when only 30 seats were available.
The most intense race will take place in New Territories East - where 74 candidates on 20 lists will battle for nine seats. Some 16 slates will fight for nine seats in New Territories West and 14 lists will contest seven seats on Hong Kong Island.
But much attention will focus on the political heavyweights battling it out for the five new 'super seats' in the functional constituency for district councils - so called because they will be elected by a city-wide ballot of the 3.2 million voters without a vote in any other functional constituency.
The pan-democratic and Beijing loyalist camps are both seeking to win three of the five seats. The Democratic Party is fielding its chairman, Albert Ho Chun-yan, and lawmaker James To Kun-sun on separate slates, while Frederick Fung Kin-kee of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood will also run.
They will take on Federation of Trade Unions honorary president Chan Yuen-han and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong vice-chairman, Lau Kong-wah, as well as a DAB slate headed by vice-chairwoman Starry Lee Wai-king.
Wan Chai district councillor Pamela Peck Wan-kam will run as an independent, but the Dutch-born Southern district councillor Paul Zimmerman, who has quit the Civic Party, confirmed he would not run. Seven slates will contest the 'super seats'.