The winners, together with 160 members to be named by designated professional and social groups, as well as 360 ex-officio members filling the other seats, will then be tasked with endorsing candidates for the Legislative Council elections slated for December and picking the chief executive next March.

Authorities received 251 nomination forms on Friday, consisting of 226 for elected seats and 25 from the designated bodies.

“Our mission is to elect a highly effective legislature which can monitor the government … We also need to counter the monopolies by capitalists, and resolve the city’s housing shortage,” said Stanley Ng Chau-pei, president of the Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), a pro-Beijing group fielding at least 50 candidates in September.

In the previous committee polls held in November 2016, about 230,000 voters were eligible to pick representatives, whose duties were mainly confined to selecting the leader.

But under Beijing’s shake-up, hundreds of representatives from district committees as well as prominent mainland Chinese groups were added to the body, and it was empowered to send 40 representatives to an expanded 90-member legislature.

The FTU was among the first groups to sign up for the race on Friday, with its leadership saying the federation hoped to become an influential force in coming polls.

Ng hosted a short press briefing outside the Harbour Building in Sheung Wan, just before leading a group of colleagues to register their candidacies for the committee’s 60-member labour subsector.

“The federation will support at least 50 members in running in the September elections,” he said.

“We also want to reform the city’s judicial system, completely decolonise the city … as well as overhaul Hong Kong’s education system and media ecosystem,” Ng added, without elaborating further.

Ng is an ex officio member of the committee due to his role as a local deputy to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature.

Pro-establishment lawmaker Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said her party would also support and work alongside committee members seeking to improve how the city was run.

“We will push for reforms in areas such as administration, land and housing, youth affairs, poverty and the judiciary,” she said.

What you need to know about Hong Kong’s Election Committee polls

Earlier on Friday, hopefuls in the catering, engineering and national organisations subsectors were seen submitting their nomination forms at the government’s Tamar headquarters, including Travel Industry Council chairman Jason Wong Chun-tat and entertainment mogul Allan Zeman.

Also spotted was a group of prominent engineering experts, including Otto Poon Lok-to, husband of justice minister Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, and former development chief Eric Ma Siu-cheung.

The engineers said the city’s economic and housing woes should be the top priorities for the next Legco and the city’s leader.

Also signing up were All-China Youth Federation vice-chairman Clarence Leung Wang-ching, who is the son of Legco president Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen, and billionaire Pansy Ho Chiu-king, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Federation of Women.

Once the nomination period closes next Thursday, the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee chaired by Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu will examine the qualifications of the hopefuls and bar anyone deemed a threat to national security.

Hong Kong begins Election Committee polls with fate of many seats all but decided

In an interview with Sing Tao Daily, Lee said a list of eligible candidates would be confirmed via the Government Gazette on August 26.

The No 2 official also said the vetting committee would not disqualify candidates for being critical of the government. But the process must ensure that candidates “truly uphold” Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and bear allegiance to the city as a special administrative region.

“Apart from obeying and supporting, upholding also requires sincerity,” Lee said. “If they did something that endangers national security, undermined the city’s overall interest, and failed to respect the nation’s systems and constitutional order … That’s different from criticising the government.”

The other members of the vetting committee are the city’s secretaries for constitutional affairs, home affairs and security, the former justice minister Elsie Leung Oi-sie, ex-Legco president Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai and former Chinese University president Lawrence Lau Juen-yee.