Candidates running for Hong Kong arts body will need to get nominations from powerful Election Committee to ensure ‘national security elements’ addressed

Candidates running for Hong Kong’s arts funding body will have to secure nominations from a powerful committee dominated by pro-Beijing forces, with the government saying the move will ensure “national security elements” are addressed.

While the Home Affairs Bureau, which oversees the city’s cultural and arts policies, said the change would bring the Arts Development Council poll in line with others held under a Beijing-decreed “patriots-only” electoral shake-up, a leading art critic expressed fears the “unnecessary” move would politicise a statutory body that had operated well.

Up to 10 of the council’s 22 non-official members can be returned via election. Currently, any of the council’s registered voters can stand as candidates as long as they secure nominations from five proposers or 1 per cent of fellow voters from the same arts sector, such as music, film or visual arts.

The change will take effect for a council election by the end of this year. Candidates will have to secure at least one nomination from 16 sector representatives on the Election Committee – an 1,463-strong body packed with Beijing-loyalists that is tasked with choosing the city’s leader and some lawmakers – as well as two from 114 listed bodies hand-picked by the government.

John Batten, president of the International Association of Art Critics Hong Kong, said he was sad to hear about the move, fearing it would effectively make it very hard for aspirants in the field to run for the council.

“The Election Committee is here to ensure the people running for chief executive or the Legislative Council will be loyal to China, but the Arts Development Council is not a political body,” Batten told the Post on Friday.

“[The change] will be politicising something that has not been very political.”