Concerns about Hong Kong’s functional constituencies and vote-rigging: SCMP uncovers the ‘dormant firms’ and the man who controls their votes
Post identifies one businessman with various links to inactive companies who controls five corporate votes
Dormant companies will be allowed to vote for trade-based seats in the Legislative Council polls, the election watchdog confirmed, after the Post found four inactive firms on the electoral roll.
A political scientist called for their disqualification because he said allowing such corporates to vote created opportunities for vote-rigging.
The four firms registered as corporate electors in the information technology constituency are linked to Joe Lok Wing-kay, a council member of the Internet Professional Association (iProA), which was founded by establishment figures including Elizabeth Quat of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.
Lok told the Post he was “happy” with the electoral office’s confirmation and would consider whether to appoint someone to vote in September.
“If the electoral office agrees my companies had in the past made contributions to society by paying so much tax and hiring so many people, perhaps I will exercise my legal rights,” Lok said. “And a dormant company can be made active again.”