Hong Kong elections: Lam’s inner circle differs on how best to deal with Legislative Council vacuum postponement of polls will create

Executive Council member Ronny Tong says emergency sessions could bridge gap, while People’s Congress deputy Ip Kwok-him sees ‘caretaker legislature’ as inevitable

One key problem that must be solved is how to get around the Basic Law’s mandated four-year term for lawmakers, which ends in September

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A number of options are on the table for Nora Tam

Published: 8:28pm, 1 Aug 2020Updated: 11:20pm, 1 Aug 2020

Hong Kong should fill in the legal blanks arising from the postponement of the Legislative Council elections on its own, a top government top adviser urged on Saturday, though a colleague, who also serves as a delegate to the national legislature, suggested Beijing should appoint who it likes for a provisional term.

The split highlighted the differences among city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s closest circle over how best to sail through the political storm that has followed the chief executive’s Friday announcement that the government was invoking the colonial-era Emergency Regulations Ordinance to postpone the quadrennial polls for a year.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Friday announced a one-year delay for the Legislative Council elections that were to have taken place in September. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

One key question was who would act as lawmakers during the one-year vacuum, given that the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, requires an official term last four years.

Lam said she had already written to the State Council in Beijing seeking counsel without offering her own proposal.

But Ronny Tong Ka-wah, a member of Lam’s Executive Council and a former Bar Association chairman, argued Beijing’s involvement could be kept to a minimum, if the government was willing to rely solely on existing local electoral law.