Hong Kong chief re-elected

HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s top executive leader Donald Tsang was on Sunday re-elected for a five-year term in office following a contest whose outcome was never in doubt given the arithmetic of the Beijing-approved electoral college in this former British colony.

Tsang secured 649 votes in the 800-member electoral college, which is made up of people representing various sectors of Hong Kong’s economy, members of the local unicameral legislature, and representatives to China’s top legislative body. His challenger, Alan Leong, who campaigned on a pro-democracy platform demanding universal suffrage, secured 123 votes.

Immediately after his victory, Tsang claimed that the election process had “laid out a solid foundation for moving toward universal suffrage…. In a modest way, we have made history.”

Leong, who had all along said he was contesting despite the certainty of defeat merely to give voice to the pro-democracy sentiments of the people of Hong Kong, decried the “rigged, small-circle election” and called for greater democracy.

Even given the pre-ordained nature of the contest, the campaign process was remarkable in that it saw, for the first time since Hong Kong reverted to China in 1997, a direct contest for the chief executive post.

For the first time since the handover, the pro-democracy camp secured enough signatures from among the electoral college members to get a candidate on the ballot.