Hong Kong elections: opposition hopefuls undecided over pledging allegiance to city, which is requirement of national security law

Name: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says primary election might have violated national security law
Uploaded: 2020-07-16T12:00:27.000Z
Duration: 1 min 59 s
Description: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says primary election might have violated national security law

Three hopefuls have already said they will not sign Electoral Affairs Commission form

Joshua Wong among those still to decide, but localists say they will ‘relentlessly oppose’ new legislation

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01:59

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says primary election might have violated national security law

Natalie Wong

Published: 8:00pm, 16 Jul 2020Updated: 11:25pm, 16 Jul 2020

Opposition hopefuls vying for a seat in the Hong Kong legislature have been caught between a rock and a hard place, as they remain undecided on whether to pledge to uphold the mini-constitution and swear allegiance to the city.

Those looking to be elected to the Legislative Council in September had faced a tough question of whether to sign a declaration form immediately after winning the primary election held by the opposition bloc over the weekend.

Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai, and two candidates from the People Power party, made it clear they would not sign the declaration form introduced by the government four years ago, despite lawyers warning they could be disqualified from the race under the new national security law.

In a statement on Thursday, the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) did not say whether candidates who did not sign would be stopped from running, but reiterated that submission of the form would be considered by returning officers before they determined if the nominations were valid.

02:07

More than 610,000 vote in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy opposition primary elections

Wednesday night’s show of defiance from Wu came hours after 15 localist activists, led by Joshua Wong Chi-fung, who all won big in last weekend’s opposition primary, piled pressure on the traditional pan-democrats to reach a consensus on whether to sign the declaration form, with the two-week nomination period beginning this Saturday.