The 2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 25 March 2012 to select the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE), the highest office in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), by a 1,193-member Election Committee (EC) to replace the incumbent Chief Executive. Won by the former non-official convener of the Executive Council of Hong Kong Leung Chun-ying, the election was the most competitive as it was the first election with more than one pro-Beijing candidate since the 1996 election.
The incumbent Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, had been elected to serve the remainder of the five-year term which was left unserved, due to the midterm resignation of his predecessor, Tung Chee-hwa. He had served his own full five year term and was ineligible to run for a re-election to a full third term as stated in the Basic Law. Leung Chun-ying ran a successful campaign against Chief Secretary for Administration, Henry Tang, who was seen as the favorite candidate by Beijing officials and business tycoons. The pan-democrats also successfully fielded their own candidate, The Democratic Party chairman, and Legislative Councilor Albert Ho, who won the primary against another pan-democrat legislator Frederick Fung, former chairman of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) on 8 January 2012.
The campaign was marked by scandals, dirty tactics, and smears from both Tang's and Leung's sides, notably Henry Tang illegal basement controversy. In the wake of the scandals which damaged Tang's popularity, the election was ultimately won by Leung Chun-ying, who received 689 electoral votes in the Election Committee with the help of the central government's Liaison Office.
Eligibility, affiliation and election mechanism
According to Article 44 of the Basic Law, the Chief Executive must be a Chinese citizen who is a permanent resident of the HKSAR with no right of abode in any foreign country. The individual must be at least 40 years old and has been residing in Hong Kong for a continuous period of no less than 20 years. Article 47 further requires that the Chief Executive be a person of integrity, dedicated to his or her duties. The 1,200-member Election Committee which was elected in the 2011 Election Committee Subsector Elections, which commenced its term of office on 1 February 2012, is composed of 1,044 members elected from 35 sub-sectors, 60 members nominated by the religious sub-sector and 96 ex-officio members, who are members of the Legislative Council or Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress. The election committee has no legitimacy in the eyes of the general public, according to Christine Loh.
Nominations for the 2012 election opened on 14 February and closed on 29 February. Each candidacy for Chief Executive must be supported by at least 150 nominations from members of the Election Committee; no EC member may nominate more than one candidate. The election proper takes place by secret ballot, with each EC member having one vote, on 25 March 2012. The successful candidate shall have secured valid votes from more than half the total stipulated number of members, namely 601 votes. If the first round of voting fails to give rise to an outright winner, a second round of voting shall be held the same day after eliminating the lowest-scoring candidate. If a second round still fails to produce an outright winner, the election will be re-run. For this, nominations will reopen, and balloting will take place six weeks later – in this case on 6 May.
Under current laws, candidates are not required to disclose their political affiliations; however, section 31 of Chief Executive Election Ordinance (Cap 569) stipulates that a person elected as the Chief Executive must "publicly make a statutory declaration to the effect that he is not a member of any political party".
Candidates
Withdrawn
Other minor candidates included Kan Kit-hung (簡傑鴻), Yu Wing-yin (余永賢), consultant of the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute, Wu Sai-chuen (胡世全), a former DAB member and Roger Chan Yuet-tung (陳乙東). None of them was successfully nominated.
Expressed interest but did not run
- Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, member of the National People's Congress Standing Committee
- Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, President of the Legislative Council
Pre-nomination events
The non-official convenor of the Executive Council Leung Chun-ying announced his plan to run on 9 September and resigned from his post in the government in mid-September 2011. Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang, considered the first choice of Beijing, resigned from the government in late September 2011. Rita Fan and Regina Ip also said they were considering running for the post, but dropped out on 15 December. Fan lost a lot of public support and respect by taking six months to consider her candidacy. After much prevarication-induced speculation, Fan announced that she would not participate because her age and health would become concerns into the CE term; and she endorsed Henry Tang instead.
Pan-democrats' primary
Civic Party legislator Alan Leong who contested the 2007 Chief Executive election expressed an interest in standing again but later announced that the Civic Party would not join the election. Albert Ho, the chairman of the Democratic Party decided to run for the post on 4 October 2011.
Frederick Fung, former chairman of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL), also expressed his interest in running for the post, and officially announced his decision to participate in the election on 8 December 2011.
After winning over 150 seats in the Election Committee subsector elections, the pan-democrats conducted the "Pan-dem Chief Executive Primary Election" to decide on a unified candidate for the pan-democrat camp on 8 January 2012. The organising committee consisted of 7 members, representing the Democratic Party, the Civic Party, the ADPL, the Neo Democrats, the Professional Commons, the Power for Democracy and the Hong Kong Democratic Development Network respectively. The 4 co-organising political parties agreed to nominate the winner of the primary election. However, some pan-democratic parties, including the League of Social Democrats, the People Power and the Labour Party, were against the primary election and the "small-circle election" at all. All Hong Kong permanent residents aged 18 or over were eligible to vote at the 74 polling stations; 33,932 votes were cast. The result combined the public voting and the poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme between 3 and 6 January with equal weights. Albert Ho won with 67.2% in the voting and 54.6% in the poll.
Early 2012
After Henry Tang became embroiled in an unauthorised building works scandal in February 2012, the field of potential pro-Beijing candidates once again opened up: New People's Party legislator Regina Ip re-announced her interest in running for the post on 20 February; at the same time, Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) also said he was "seriously considering" running for the post. In addition to Rita Fan, Financial Secretary John Tsang and Secretary for Development Carrie Lam, businessman Victor Fung and Joseph Yam were touted by pundits as possible candidates. Tsang's final decision not to stand, after ten days of deliberations, was influenced by concerns about the intrusion of party politics into the chief executive race, and the effect of his candidature (and potential success in getting elected) for the DAB in the forthcoming Legislative Council elections in September. Ip failed to receive enough nominations before the deadline and thus did not qualify to stand for the election.
Nominations
The nomination period ran from 14 to 29 February 2012, which Albert Ho was the first declared candidate to submit his nomination, having secured 184 votes (including his own) from Election Committee members. He failed to capture 21 of the known pan-democrat votes.
Henry Tang was the second to submit his nomination; he did so earlier than planned on 20 February after having secured 379 nominations, days after his implication in an illegal structure scandal and on the day the press published allegations of yet another of his extra-marital liaisons. Tang's nominees included most of the major local property magnates: Li Ka-shing, Lee Shau-kee of Henderson Land Development, New World Development's Henry Cheng and Sun Hung Kai Properties' Raymond and Thomas Kwok, Chinese Estates Holdings chairman Joseph Lau, Robert Ng of Sino Group, Hopewell Holdings chairman Gordon Wu; Tang is also endorsed by Heung Yee Kuk chairman Lau Wong-fat and film director Stephen Chow.
Tang's early nomination was seen by some pundits as a strategic move to lock in his gains early; others suggest that it was a pre-emptive move ahead of pronouncements from Beijing.
"Inevitably, [Tang's] refusal to quit has put Beijing in a difficult position as signs of unwavering support will be taken as evidence that the election has a pre-determined winner. Worse, it risks provoking the public further and triggering a crisis if he is allowed to govern with his integrity in shreds."
— Leader, South China Morning Post, 22 February 2012
According to an analysis by the South China Morning Post, support for Tang amongst 12 major property conglomerates accounting for at least 64 seats on the Election Committee was by no means unequivocal: they pledged 38 of these votes to Tang. Three had given more than half of their nominations to Tang, while four gave only half; Wharf Holdings and Swire gave only their chairmen's votes to Tang.
Leung Chun-ying submitted his candidature on 23 February; he received 293 nominations. Leung obtained nominations from 57 of the 60 representatives from the agriculture and fisheries sub-sector, 29 nominations from the labour sub-sector, 25 from the engineering, architectural, surveying and planning sub-sectors, and 12 from the finance and financial services sub-sectors. He also secured 20 nominations from Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions and about 30 from members of the DAB. Heavyweights who support Leung included former executive councillor Arthur Li, former chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties Walter Kwok, Shui on Group chairman Vincent Lo and former Broadcasting Authority chairman Daniel Fung. Leung admitted that it was difficult securing the prerequisite 150 votes to enter the race; The Standard cited a source saying that Leung had secured those nominations through efforts of officials of the Central Government Liaison office (CLO).
Pundits reckoned that Tang lost around 100 votes to Leung as a result of Tang's scandals. As Tang enjoyed an advantage over Leung of EC members belonging to the commercial and property development sectors, Leung pledged to serve "all the seven million people in Hong Kong." The DAB and a number of others hinted that they were holding back on their nominations to allow Jasper Tsang to enter the fray should he so wish.
"Two-horse race"
Tang has a reputation of being lazy and unintelligent; Leung is a surveyor with business acumen but who seems to appear cold and brutal. Hence, the Chief Executive election was dubbed as a contest between "the wolf" (referring to Leung) and "the pig" (referring to Tang). Tang's status as the front-runner among those that mattered stems from the fact Tang's father, who originates from Jiangsu, not Guangdong province, is closely connected to a faction close to Jiang Zemin. In early 2012, it emerged that support for Tang may have been played up by people close to Liao Hui, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office from 1997 to 2000, to the detriment of Leung, who is an equally acceptable candidate to top leaders. Leung's patriotism and his contributions to Hong Kong – including his involvement in the drafting Hong Kong's Basic Law – are noted, although he remains distrusted by business magnates. Albert Ho, leader of the Democratic Party, is not expected to receive support of any members of the Election Committee apart from those who were popularly elected, and is thus a token candidate in the "small-circle election". Tsang Yok-sing's exit from the forefront on 27 February reaffirmed the two-horse race that Beijing had endorsed.
Top Chinese leaders have stipulated that the next CE would have to be patriotic in the eyes of both Beijing and Hong Kong, have governing and management skills, and command wide public acceptance. Li Jianguo, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, informed local NPC deputies in January 2012 that Leung and Tang were both "acceptable" to Beijing as chief executive candidates, adding that he hoped to see a fair fight in the race. Speaking at a press conference after the close of the fifth plenary session of the 11th National People's Congress, premier Wen Jiabao reiterated the government's position.
"I believe that as long as the principle of openness, justice and fairness is observed and relevant legal procedures are complied with, Hong Kong will elect a chief executive who enjoys the support of the vast majority of Hong Kong people"Wen Jiabao, 14 March 2012