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Barred from contesting polls, four Hong Kong lawmakers await Beijing’s decision on their time left in Legco
- Sitting lawmakers Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki and Kenneth Leung could see their political careers effectively ended in the coming weeks
- ‘Beijing removes whoever they want, probably wishing to remove all of us except those in the pro-establishment camp from Legco’, Leung says
Reading Time:8 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Four sitting Hong Kong lawmakers – the Civic Party’s Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu, Dennis Kwok and Kwok Ka-ki, as well as Kenneth Leung of the accountancy sector – have been barred from contesting the next Legislative Council elections. Key reasons cited by the election officials who announced their disqualification on July 30 included the national security law and pan-democrats’ previous calls for foreign governments, including the United States, to sanction Beijing and Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has postponed the Legco elections – originally scheduled for September 6 – by a year, and it remains unclear if the four lawmakers will be allowed to stay in office during the interim. China’s top legislative body is expected to issue a legal directive that could effectively end their political careers. Below, the Post provides a snapshot of the months leading to their disqualifications and examines what the road ahead might look like.
KENNETH LEUNG
‘With a lack of trust, why should I stay?’
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In February 2018, Kenneth Leung was seated in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, alongside his colleagues from Hong Kong’s Trade and Industry Advisory Board, listening to state leader Zhang Dejiang describe China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
That year, he was one of three pan-democrats who broke ranks and voted in support of the city government’s annual budget.
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