Pro-democracy lawmaker Eddie Chu gets nod to run in district council elections after he confirms renouncing Hong Kong’s self-determination
- Chu says he changed his mind after a court in September ruled ‘self-determination’ was not compatible with Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law
- Last December, he was barred from running for a village chief election for ‘implicitly’ supporting the city’s self-determination
A pro-democracy lawmaker who was previously barred from running for a village representative election due to his advocacy for Hong Kong’s “self-determination” was on Tuesday given the green light to run in the district council elections next month.
The confirmation from the same electoral official who had banned him last year came after Eddie Chu Hoi-dick gave a single-word response – “yes” – to the question whether he had renounced advocacy for Hong Kong’s independence as an option.
Chu, who got most votes in the 2016 Legislative Council elections, is among the last batch of candidates who had their bids confirmed for the district council polls. With Chu’s surprise approval, no candidate has been disqualified for the November polls so far.
However, all eyes will now be on whether Joshua Wong Chi-fung, another activist who also supported self-determination earlier, will be banned from running in the elections.
If one day there is a change in the law, candidates will be able to speak of their political stance more freely
Wong earlier faced three rounds of questioning from an electoral officer on his political allegiance to mainland China.