Hong Kong chief executive race 2022: Beijing’s liaison office calls together political elites to discuss candidates, seeks choice ‘within days’
- Members of the committee that will decide candidates, and the winner, say liaison office has been asking if they will support ‘the candidate’
- While the office can’t name him outright just yet, John Lee is widely expected to emerge as the front runner
Hong Kong has never before been so close to the end of a chief executive’s term with no official indication of a possible successor, and the meeting of Election Committee members is expected to herald a flurry of activity across the few weeks remaining until polling day.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam will not seek a second term as city’s chief executive
Lam’s withdrawal leaves Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu, Hong Kong’s No 2 official, as the sole heavyweight tipped to contest the race.
“Since Carrie Lam has officially declared she will not be running, the picture is getting clearer,” said one committee member who had been invited to the talks.
Sources earlier told the Post that Lee, 64, was expected to tender his resignation on Wednesday and “intense work” was under way to “assemble his campaign team” ahead of his possible entry into the race. A two-week nomination process kicked off on Sunday.
A pro-establishment member told the Post that the central government’s liaison office has been calling committee members on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they would support “the candidate”, which the member believed to mean Lee. The office would be in breach of election rules if it floated Lee’s name while he was still chief secretary.