Hong Kong kicks off LegCo election nomination

HONG KONG - Fifteen nomination forms were received on Saturday as Hong Kong kicked off a two-week nomination period for people aspiring to join the city's new legislature.

The seventh Legislative Council election is scheduled on Dec 19, with over 4.4 million registered voters to return 90 lawmakers serving the next four years.

A total of 15 nomination forms — five each for the geographical constituencies, functional constituencies and the Election Committee constituency — were received by the Returning Officers on Saturday, the first day of the nomination period, the government said.

In March 2021, the National People's Congress revamped the electoral system of the special administrative region, expanding the number of seats in LegCo from 70 to 90. Among them, 20 are returned by direct elections from 10 geographical constituencies around Hong Kong, 30 from 28 functional constituencies covering different professional sectors, and the remaining 40 are chosen by the newly elected 1,500-strong Election Committee that is made up by representatives of various sectors.

The election of the legislature is the second poll to be held under the revamped system. The subsector elections of the Election Committee were held on Sept 19.

In the guidelines issued by the Electoral Affairs Commission, the city's election regulator, a candidate running for a seat in the Legislative Council must be a registered geographical constituency elector aged 21 or above, who has ordinarily lived in Hong Kong for the three years immediately before the date of nomination.

Candidates for all except the 12 functional constituencies must be Chinese citizens who are Hong Kong permanent residents with no right of abode in a foreign country. For the exempted constituencies including legal, accountancy, engineering, tourism, finance and insurance, candidates can be Hong Kong permanent residents who are not Chinese citizens or who have the right of abode in a foreign country.

According to the guidelines, each nominee should pay an election deposit of HK$50,000 ($6,430) for running in the geographical constituency election and HK$25,000 for running in functional constituencies or for seats returned by the Election Committee. Each nominee must submit the documents and a deposit in person to the respective Returning Officers within the nomination period, which ends on Nov 12.

After the nomination period, the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, a newly founded gatekeeper under the reformed electoral system, will review all applications. The CERC will decide whether the nominees comply with all the legal requirements and conditions for upholding the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR and bearing allegiance to the SAR, before releasing a list of candidates eligible to run in December's election.