China: ‘Nonsense’ reason for Hong Kong electoral data breach blasted | South China Morning Post

The office in charge of elections in Hong Kong was ridiculed on Monday for its “nonsensical” account of why it transported the personal data of nearly 3.8 million registered voters to a back-up venue for the chief executive ballot, only to have it stolen a week ago. The Registration and Electoral Office said the information was needed to check the identities of Election Committee members entering the venue at the AsiaWorld-Expo. Facing criticism that such reasoning made no sense because all that was required was a list of the 1,194 committee members tasked to pick the city’s leader instead of the entire electorate at large, the office admitted its procedures had been “inappropriate” in hindsight.
Grilled by lawmakers on the Legislative Council’s Finance Committee, chief electoral officer Wong See-man revealed that the follow-up apology to voters had cost taxpayers HK$5 million.

China: Hong Kong democracy activists charged hours after election of new city leader | The Guardian

Hong Kong police have started a crackdown on pro-democracy lawmakers and activists, informing at least nine people they will be charged for their involvement in a series of street protests more than two years ago. The charges come a day after Carrie Lam was elected to be the city’s chief executive. Heavily backed by the Chinese government, she has promised to heal divisions in an increasingly polarised political climate; pro-Beijing elites and businesses have repeatedly clashed with grassroots movements demanding more democracy. For nearly three months in 2014, protesters surrounded the main government offices and blocked roads in the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district. While several high-profile cases were brought in the months after, the vast majority of protesters were not charged.

China: ‘A selection, not an election’: Pro-Beijing committee picks loyalist to lead Hong Kong | The Washington Post

An elite election committee composed of Beijing loyalists chose a new leader Sunday for the 7.3 million people of Hong Kong: Carrie Lam, who is expected to follow the central government’s instructions to the letter. To become Hong Kong’s chief executive, Lam beat out John Tsang, a former finance secretary who enjoyed considerable popularity, according to opinion polls, and Woo Kwok-hing, a retired high court judge who never stood a chance. The three-person ticket was itself the product of tightly controlled, small-circle vetting. “We have a qualified electorate of millions, but I don’t have a vote, and most other people don’t have a vote,” said Anson Chan, who once served as Hong Kong’s top civil servant.

China: Hong Kong chooses new leader amid accusations of China meddling | The Guardian

A small electoral college has begun voting for a new leader of Hong Kong amid accusations that Beijing is meddling and denying the Chinese-ruled financial hub a more populist figurehead better suited to defuse political tension. The majority of the city’s 7.3 million people have no say in deciding their next leader, with the winner chosen by a 1,200-person “election committee” stacked with pro-Beijing and pro-establishment loyalists. Three candidates are running for the post of chief executive on Sunday: two former officials, Carrie Lam and John Tsang, and a retired judge, Woo Kwok-hing. Lam is considered the favourite. Outside the voting centre, there were some scuffles between protesters and police. The protesters denounced Beijing’s “interference” amid widespread reports of lobbying of the voters to back Lam, rather than the more populist and conciliatory former finance chief, Tsang. “Lies, coercion, whitewash,” read one protest banner. “The central government has intervened again and again,” said Carmen Tong, a 20-year-old university student. “It’s very unjust.”

China: Hong Kong faces ‘selection not election’ of China’s favoured candidate | The Guardian

Every newly elected leader of Hong Kong takes the oath of office in front of China’s president, below a giant red national flag of China, and the slightly smaller banner of the city. It is a tightly scripted event designed to shield Chinese officials from the embarrassment of dissenting voices. In Hong Kong politics, formality is everything, and many say the election for the city’s next leader which happens on Sunday will indeed be a formality. Most expect Beijing’s preferred candidate to be anointed despite her rival being by far the more popular choice. … However, only 1,194 people are able to cast a ballot, far less than the city’s 3.8 million registered voters. Those who have a say include all 70 members of the city’s legislature and some district politicians, business groups, professional unions, pop stars, priests and professors.

China: With 65,000 mock votes from a target of one million, does Hong Kong even care about its leadership election? | South China Morning Post

The public’s sense of powerlessness and privacy concerns might explain the low turnout for the mock chief executive election poll, according to the organisers and a pan-democrat lawmaker. The remarks came after just 65,000 people voted in the mock ballot that opened on March 10 and ended on Sunday, well short of the organisers’ target of one million votes. IT sector lawmaker Charles Mok said organisers should assess why there was such a low turnout and tackle privacy concerns so the mock vote can become a better tool to gauge public opinion in the future. After consulting computer experts and other professional organisations, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data issued a second warning on Sunday, saying it had established that the organisers, when collecting voters’ personal data, had breached information security practices.

China: Beware of privacy issues in mock online election | South China Morning Post

Benny Tai Yiu-ting of Occupy Central fame is set to relaunch a mock nomination and election of the chief executive. The so-called civil referendum uses a mobile app and a website to encourage people to nominate and vote for “candidates”. Critics including the privacy commissioner have expressed alarm. Tai’s previous ThunderGo mobile app debacle was accused by even some pan-democratic candidates in the last Legislative Council election of distorting the voting outcomes by favouring extremist candidates over more mainstream ones. Hong Kong’s unofficial chief executive election opinion poll PopVote back online next week

China: ‘Unfair’ Hong Kong election sparks fresh democracy calls | AFP

The vote for Hong Kong’s new leader kicks off this week, but most of its 3.8 million-strong electorate will have no say in choosing the winner, prompting calls for an overhaul of a system skewed towards Beijing. It is the first leadership vote since mass pro-democracy protests in 2014 failed to win political reform and comes as fears grow that China is tightening its grip on semi-autonomous Hong Kong. As the first round of voting begins, the four candidates are wooing the public — dropping in to no-frills cafes to eat local dishes with ordinary folk. But to little avail. The winner will be chosen by a committee of 1,200 representatives of special interest groups, weighted towards Beijing. According to a count by local media, only around a quarter are in the pro-democracy camp.

China: Thousands march in Hong Kong protest demanding voting rights | International Business Times

Almost 5,000 people marched through Hong Kong on New Year’s Day in protest against the government’s attempt to disqualify four pro-democracy lawmakers, according to a police estimate. Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous government has started legal proceedings against four recently elected legislators, who altered their swearing-in oaths to stage a protest against the Chinese government in Beijing. Their demonstration included flaunting a banner that read “Hong Kong is not China”, which used language that some have claimed was derogatory Japanese slang.

China: Pro-democracy camp wins more than a quarter of seats on Hong Kong Election Committee | Hong Kong Free Press

The pro-democracy camp has seen a landslide in at least six sectors of Sunday’s Chief Executive Election Committee poll, and expects to win at least 325 seats in the 1,200-seat committee. The camp has won all seats in six professional sectors: social welfare, IT, health services, legal, education and higher education. The camp also gained almost all seats in the accountancy sector and the architectural sectors. In the medical sector, 85 people were running for 30 seats. The pro-democracy camp sent 19 candidates and all of them won. The camp also made some breakthroughs in sectors such as Chinese medicine, with three wins out of the 30 seats.

China: Democracy Activist Held Under House Arrest to Prevent Election Bid | RFA

Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong are holding a veteran democracy activist under unofficial house arrest to prevent him from standing as independent candidate in forthcoming local elections to his district People’s Congress. Retired university lecturer Sun Wenguang, 82, has been unable to leave his home in Shandong’s provincial capital Jinan since last Friday. Video seen by RFA from last week showed him canvassing potential voters and handing out leaflets on the campus of Shandong University, surrounding by unidentified men that Sun refers to as “state security police.” In a later video, Sun is shown arguing with a man in a leather jacket who prevents him from getting into the lift outside his apartment, and asks him where he is going. “It’s none of your business where I’m going,” retorts Sun. “This is a violation of my personal rights; you are not even in police uniform. What department are you from?”

China: ‘We Have a Fake Election’: China Disrupts Local Campaigns | The New York Times

He presented himself as a candidate of the people, a folksy problem-solver who would rid garbage-strewn streets of dog waste and put an end to illegal parking. But in the eyes of the authorities, Zhang Shangen, 73, a candidate in local elections in Beijing on Tuesday, was a menace seeking to undermine the Communist Party. The Chinese government blocked Mr. Zhang’s campaign at every turn, sending police officers to intimidate him and his supporters. On the eve of a major rally last month, Mr. Zhang said, the authorities whisked him to a city more than 800 miles away. “The government manipulates everything,” he said in an interview at his home in Beijing on Tuesday. “They are scared people will wake up to reality.” Tuesday was Election Day in Beijing, with thousands of seats for party-run local congresses up for grabs. Outside community centers and police stations, officials urged people to “treasure democratic rights” and “cast your sacred and solemn ballot.” But before the elections, there were no debates, town hall-style forums, social media wars or other hallmarks of participatory democracy.

China: Voting in an election ‘with Chinese characteristics’ | AFP

When Chinese voters go to the polls, it is only to pick local representatives to advise on mundane issues like rubbish collection and parking. But when Ye Jinghuan sought election in Beijing, she was treated like an enemy of the state. Plainclothes officers tailed the 64-year old retiree as she left her home on polling day Tuesday, and she faced constant harassment from police and government officials after announcing her run, she said. The nationwide contest for spots in local legislatures, held every five years, is the only direct election in the People’s Republic of China. Authorities were eager to show off what they describe as democracy “with Chinese characteristics”, with officials ushering dozens of reporters into a polling station in Xingfu, in central Beijing. Voters filled out their pink ballot papers in front of officials, ignoring a screened-off area labelled “Secret Balloting Place”.

China: China also is going to the polls. But you’d barely know it. | The Washington Post

All around Liu Huizhen’s makeshift house, clusters of men lurked and smoked on a recent day, suspiciously eyeing passersby. Dozens of uniformed police waited in reserve, ready in case of trouble, while a thuggish man stood in the middle of the road with arms defiantly folded, preventing cars from passing. Liu, a 45-year-old farmer’s wife, appears to have the Communist Party worried, here in the village of Gaodiansan on the outskirts of Beijing. She wants to exercise her constitutional right to stand in local elections due to be held in the capital on Nov. 15, and about a dozen supporters had arrived to help her begin her campaign. They were to be blocked by a decisive show of force. “Some people think I am a troublemaker,” she said. “They think this is the government’s decision and I won’t win in the end. But I am not afraid. I have the right to participate in this election. I didn’t do anything illegal.”

China: 45 National Lawmakers Expelled Amid Vote-Buying Scandal | Caixin

China’s top legislature has expelled 45 lawmakers, or nearly half the number elected from Liaoning province, over a bribery and vote-buying scandal. The decision — announced at a highly unusual emergency meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on Tuesday — comes after a two-year investigation by the Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog into election fraud in the northeastern province. China’s national and provincial lawmakers are chosen through a multitiered voting system, with members within the legislative bodies electing candidates mostly nominated by the party. An estimated 523 lawmakers out of the 619 members of Liaoning’s People’s Congress were implicated in the scandal, which involved paying “enormous amount of money” to their peers to get elected in 2013, said sources close to the investigation, which concluded in June.

China: The Democratic Experiment that Never Was | ChinaFile

Protesters in southern China are up in arms. They feel that Beijing’s promises that they’d be able to vote for their own local leaders have been honored in the breach. They’re outraged at the show of force in the face of peaceful protest, and confronted with superior government might, they are using the power of numbers and the reach of social media to make their voices heard. Readers would be forgiven for thinking the above to be a description of Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protests in October 2014 and a subsequent independence movement have captured global attention. But it also depicts Wukan, a small mainland Chinese village about a three and-a-half-hour drive east of the former British colony. In December 2011, it became a global symbol for a new style of Chinese governance when a citizen uprising against illegal land seizures and a brief exercise in self-rule during a police blockade elicited promises of village-level democratization from Beijing. Now citizen unrest is making headlines once again.

China: Two localists barred from running in election to challenge disqualifications | Hong Kong Free Press

Edward Leung Tin-kei, one of the five candidates who was barred from running in the LegCo election for their political stances, has said he will lodge an election petition to challenge the decision to reject his nomination after election results are gazetted. A media liaison assistant for Andy Chan Ho-tin, the Hong Kong National Party convenor who was barred from the election for advocating Hong Kong independence, told HKFP that Chan may also lodge an election petition after the results are printed in the gazette, the Hong Kong government’s official record. Their petitions, if successful, may overturn the results and trigger re-elections for Legislative Council seats, at least in the constituencies they were originally nominated in.

China: One small step: Meet Hong Kong’s vote counting agents | Hong Kong Free Press

Instead of sleeping on Sunday night after the LegCo election, 33-year-old AM730 columnist William Chan instead volunteered to watch people count ballots, which ended up lasting until 8am in the morning due to a recount. Chan was one of the organisers of a Facebook event called Monitor Your Own Polling Stations, which called on Hong Kong people to witness the vote count at their local polling stations. Despite the fact that the page was set up only a couple days before the election, 190 people confirmed their attendance. Mo Chan, another organiser, said the event was necessary because people have no confidence in the election process. “Since the beginning of the LegCo election, since the nomination process, we have seen a lot of things that were done in a very weird way. We think that – as residents – we should use our own eyes to watch this thing carefully.” He mentioned the disqualification of candidates, reports of people arriving at polling stations to find their ballots had already been cast by someone else, and reports of people telling senior citizens who to vote for by writing it on their hands as odd happenings that unfolded during the voting process.

China: Peaceful Hong Kong localists triumph over militants in Legislative Council elections | South China Morning Post

They may all be identified as localists advocating self-determination for Hong Kong, but those advocating peaceful means have performed better in the Legislative Council elections than those taking a “militant” approach. Of the two dozen localist candidates, those who call for “democratic self-determination” have emerged as the big winners. They include “king of votes” Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, Occupy Central student leader Nathan Law Kwun-chung and university lecturer Lau Siu-lai. The three, running in different constituencies, bagged a total of 173,122 votes. New Legco likely to mean more fractures – and an even less friendly approach to Hong Kong and mainland governments

China: In Hong Kong, Young Protest Leaders Win Seats in Local Elections | The New York Times

A group of young people committed to rewriting the rules that govern Hong Kong’s relationship with China were swept into office on Sunday in elections for the city’s legislature, lifted by record voter turnout, according to a government vote tally. Some of the young protesters who took part in Hong Kong’s enormous 2014 pro-democracy demonstrations will now wield a small measure of real political power for the first time. The failure of that movement to secure major democratic reforms in Hong Kong, a former British colony, and fears that the city’s considerable autonomy was under assault led these candidates to campaign on everything from self-determination to the outright independence of Hong Kong from mainland China. Their success signals the emergence of a new political force. Until now, the pro-democracy forces in the city have been dominated by politicians who sought to expand the power of voters to select the city’s leaders and lawmakers under the guidance of the mini-constitution that codifies Hong Kong’s special relationship with mainland China, called “one country, two systems.”

China: China’s Hard Line on Hong Kong Democracy Faces Election Test | Bloomberg

Since thousands of Hong Kong students blocked city streets two years ago to protest a restrictive plan for promised elections, the government’s response to democratic demands hasn’t wavered: Put aside the political fights, enjoy being part of China, prosper together. That take-or-leave-it approach to managing Hong Kong will be put to the test Sunday, with almost 4 million voters eligible to choose 70 members of the former British colony’s Legislative Council. The once-in-four-year election has drawn almost 300 candidates as a new crop of more radical activists seek a platform to challenge Beijing and others urge a more accommodating approach to bridge widening political divides.

China: Hong Kong election ballot papers at risk of tampering in the homes of officers | South China Morning Post

Critics have urged the government to improve the handling of ballot papers after it emerged that the documents were being stored in the homes of polling station officers prior to the election. News agency FactWire reported on Thursday that, according to a handbook issued by the Registration and Electoral Office, officers were allowed to take ballot papers back to their homes a week before the Legislative Council election on Sunday. The news report said the ballot papers were sealed in plastic bags after being counted and would only be opened on the day of the election.

China: Candidates to face ‘follow-up action’ if they back Hong Kong independence, government warns | South China Morning Post

Candidates who advocate ­independence for Hong Kong on the campaign trail ahead of ­Sunday’s Legislative Council elections will face possible “follow-up actions”, the government warned on Tuesday. The heads-up came a day after a third Legco candidate, Kacee Wong Sum-yu, publicly declared her support for the idea of separating Hong Kong from China. The issue is at the centre of a fierce debate in the city, with the government warning that it violates the Basic Law while advocates counter that it is a mater of free speech. Voters go to the polls this weekend for the first full legislative elections since the 2014 Occupy protests in the name of democracy. “The government is concerned that … individual candidates have during the election period advocated or promoted the independence of the Hong Kong SAR,” an official spokesman said.

China: Young activists take on China in key Hong Kong election | AFP

When Hong Kong goes to the polls on Sunday a new brand of politician pushing for a complete break from Beijing will be fighting for votes in a frustrated and divided city. It is the most important election since the mass “Umbrella Movement” pro-democracy rallies of 2014, which failed to win political reform despite huge numbers and a global spotlight. Since then, fears have grown that Beijing is tightening its grip in many areas of the semi-autonomous city — from politics to education and media. Some young activists now say there is only one choice: a declaration of independence from China. Many residents still dismiss the idea as a pipe dream, but the independence movement has gathered momentum as authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing rail against it.

China: The complex design of Hong Kong’s legislative elections ensure that nothing will change | Hong Kong Free Press

The bans against six candidates for advocating Hong Kong independence have added a new dimension to the coming September 4 Legislative Council election. Suddenly, everyone is talking about the prospect, whereas before it was just another of those far-out ideas that local conservatives think college students dream up to waste time and make trouble for the authorities. But for all the anxiety over a possible post-Occupy pro-independence radical surge on September 4, preliminary polling suggests there may be only minimal change in the Legislative Council’s balance of political forces once the dust settles. For one thing, the council’s design makes anything else almost impossible. The 70-seat body is so thoroughly spliced and diced that it would take a true tsunami-like wave election to make much difference in its political composition.

China: ‘Liberate Hong Kong’: pre-election calls for independence from China grow | The Guardian

When Edward Leung closes his eyes and dreams of Hong Kong’s future he pictures a utopian metropolis of skyscrapers and social justice, “where people can do whatever they want as long as it isn’t harmful to others”. “It’s an international place. A cosmopolitan state,” says the fashionable 25-year-old politics and philosophy graduate. Is it part of China? “No,” Leung replies emphatically. “Not any more.” Leung is one of the leaders of a small but increasingly visible independence movement in the former British colony that is setting the agenda before key elections for Hong Kong’s Legislative Council parliament on 4 September. The movement was catapulted into the headlines in early August when the semi-autonomous city – which returned to Chinese rule almost two decades ago, in 1997 – saw the first pro-independence rally in its history.

China: Another candidate’s election material banned from public estates for ‘HK independence’ phrase | Hong Kong Free Press

Another pro-democracy Legislative Council election candidate has said his pamphlets were banned from being distributed at public housing estates by the Housing Department as they contained the phrase “Hong Kong independence.” Avery Ng Man-yuen, the League of Social Democrats chairman who is running in Kowloon West constituency, condemned the department’s decision outside its headquarters in Ho Man Tin on Wednesday: “Shame on political censorship, it is interfering with the fairness of the election.” Ng said the department originally agreed the pamphlets on August 11. After they were printed, his volunteers started distributing them to residents. “But on August 16 morning, Kai Ching Estate’s management office called to say the pamphlets’ approval was retracted, because pamphlets mentioned ‘self-determination’ and ‘Hong Kong independence’,” Ng said.

China: Protests in Hong Kong over election restrictions | Reuters

Hundreds of protesters rallied on Sunday against Hong Kong’s disqualification of six candidates from legislative elections, the latest outpouring of anger at a perceived tightening grip on the city’s freedoms by China. The former British colony was handed back to China in 1997 under an agreement that gave ultimate control to Communist Party rulers in Beijing while promising Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy. But Beijing’s refusal to grant full democracy, which prompted widespread street protests in 2014, has triggered tension with growing calls for Hong Kong to split from China. “Against the political filtering (of candidates), give us a fair election,” chanted the demonstrators in sweltering heat of 32 degree Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit).

China: Hong Kong politicians seek independence from China in 2047 | The Economic Times

The run-up to the Sept. 4 election for Legislative Council is getting tense, and the governments of both Hong Kong and Beijing are watching with keen interest. For the first time, a crop of fresh-faced candidates who cut their political teeth during the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in 2014 are hoping to bring to the lawmaking body their battle to emancipate Hong Kong from Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian control. The activists, most of whom are in their 20s, no longer believe in the promises of the “one country, two systems” principle set out in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution since Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997.

China: Hong Kong student Joshua Wong avoids jail over pro-democracy protest | The Guardian

Joshua Wong, the most public face of Hong Kong’s umbrella movement demonstrations, has avoided a jail term for his role in a protest that helped launch the unprecedented 79-day political convulsion. Wong, 19, and fellow activist Alex Chow, who is 25, had been convicted last month of unlawfully entering a fenced off area outside Hong Kong’s government headquarters on 26 September 2014. A third activist, 23-year-old Nathan Law, was convicted of inciting others to take part in the action which happened just before Hong Kong was gripped by almost three months of demonstrations against Beijing’s refusal to grant democratic concessions to the territory. At the time Amnesty International denounced the verdicts as “a chilling warning for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly” in Hong Kong. On Monday a court in the former British colony stopped short of handing down jail terms to the three men.