As the nomination period closed on Sunday, it emerged that seven candidates in total will be contesting for the New Territories East constituency seat in the upcoming Legislative Council by-election.
The election was triggered by the resignation of former Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah and has been set for February 28, 2016.
The Registration and Electoral Office confirmed that as of Sunday, they have received seven nomination forms. The pan-democratic camp and the pro-Beijing camp will be represented by the Civic Party’s Alvin Yeung and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong’s Holden Chow respectively.
Other candidates include Leung Tin-kei from localist group Hong Kong Indigenous, new “moderate” political party The Third Side‘s Wong Sing-chi, Fong Kwok-shan, a Sai Kung District Councillor who is running as an independent, Body Figuring Practitioner and barrister Leung See-ho, and company director Lau Chi-shing, who claims to have no political affiliation.
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The Electoral Affairs Commission will be holding a briefing on the evening of January 20, during which a draw will be held to decide the candidate numbers of those who will be standing in the election, as well as to allocate advertising spaces, Apple Daily reported.
Sparks flew between Yeung and Chow at a radio debate on Sunday. Chow said that voters should pick him if they do not want to see Hong Kong crumble as a result of filibustering, which gets in the way of livelihood matters such as subsidies for families, while Yeung said that Hongkongers have had enough of the DAB protecting the government all these years and that they would vote to recover their dignity.
