Hong Kong elections: mass disqualification of opposition hopefuls sparks political storm
- The group includes such well-known names as Alvin Yeung, Joshua Wong, Dennis Kwok and Gwyneth Ho
- Government warns more nominations could yet be invalidated, saying there is ‘no question of any political censorship’ or restriction of freedom of speech
Citing the city’s new national security law and the pan-democrats’ previous calls for foreign governments to sanction Beijing and Hong Kong as key reasons, election officials on Thursday invalidated the candidacies of four incumbent lawmakers – the Civic Party’s Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, Dennis Kwok and Kwok Ka-ki, along with that of accountancy sector lawmaker Kenneth Leung.
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12 Legislative Council hopefuls including Joshua Wong banned from running
The returning officers cited similar reasons, as well as the opposition hopefuls’ pledge to vote down the government’s budget and other proposals should it win its first-ever legislative majority, in barring activists Joshua Wong, Ventus Lau Wing-hong, Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam and Alvin Cheng Kam-mun as well as district councillors Cheng Tat-hung, Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen Ka-wai and Fergus Leung Fong-wai.
Those hopefuls cannot be genuinely upholding the Basic Law as they tried to paralyse the government and subvert state power
The latest political storm was unleashed even as sources said the government was likely to cite the Covid-19 pandemic in postponing the Legco polls, scheduled for September 6, by an entire year, and request China’s top legislative body to issue a legal directive resolving any outstanding constitutional issues.
At least 21 other opposition hopefuls were still waiting for returning officers’ verdicts on their candidacy applications. With the nomination period closing on Friday, it remained unclear whether they, including six Democratic Party lawmakers and Joshua Wong’s nine allies from the “resistance bloc”, would be disqualified as well.
