Hong Kong’s pan-democrats back on the campaign trail but still divided on how they can shape the chief executive election
In 2012 ago the camp won 205 seats on the committee that selects the city’s leader; this time they are aiming at over 300 – but how will they use those votes?
Pan-democrats are playing aggressive this time in scrambling for seats on the committee that will pick the city’s new leader in March – yet they are caught between a rock and a hard place on how to use their votes.
With the nomination period for the 1,200-member Election Committee opening on Tuesday, a group of pan-democratic professionals and activists have formed an alliance called “Democrats 300+”, aiming to grab more than 300 seats. The bloc and its allies won 205 seats in the 2011 poll for the chance to vote for the chief executive in 2012.
While a number of professional sectors, such as legal, social welfare and education, have always been pan-democrat strongholds, the bloc never fielded enough candidates in the past to contest all sectors, some of which are returned by individual rather than corporate voters.
In 2011 only five pan-democrats ran in the 30-strong medical sector, with two returned. That situation has now changed.
“We have fielded at least 100 candidates more this year compared to what we did in the last poll,” said accountancy sector lawmaker Kenneth Leung, of the Professionals Guild, which is helping to coordinate the camp’s efforts.