{"id":99551,"date":"2021-04-17T21:47:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-17T13:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=341253"},"modified":"2021-04-17T21:47:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-17T13:47:09","slug":"hong-kong-residents-stranded-in-mainland-china-by-coronavirus-may-be-allowed-to-vote-in-local-elections-at-special-polling-stations-on-city-side-of-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2021\/04\/17\/hong-kong-residents-stranded-in-mainland-china-by-coronavirus-may-be-allowed-to-vote-in-local-elections-at-special-polling-stations-on-city-side-of-border\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong residents stranded in mainland China by coronavirus may be allowed to vote in local elections at special polling stations on city side of border"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Hongkongers living in mainland China may be allowed to cast their votes in future local elections at special polling stations on the city side of border if the coronavirus pandemic continues to curb travel. Officials also told lawmakers the newly empowered Election Committee would run for a five-year term until 2026, but added beyond then its exact fate was unknown because the central government had ordered a \u201cvacuum period\u201d at that point, pending further instructions. The government on Saturday for the first time put its umbrella bill for delivering Beijing\u2019s drastic overhaul of Hong Kong\u2019s electoral system before the Legislative Council for lawmakers to scrutinise. Corporate voters\u2019 mainland China ties raise concerns over Beijing\u2019s influence on Hong Kong polls Members of the legislative bills committee spent only two hours discussing the overall principles of the bill \u2013 which includes more than 700 pages of amendments to existing ordinances and subsidiary legislation \u2013 before moving on to study the articles one by one. The city administration previously said it expected the bill to be approved by the end of next month, with the legislature holding extra meetings. Fearing another health crisis setback, some pro-establishment lawmakers asked whether the government was prepared to postpone three coming elections. The Election Committee contest is scheduled for September, followed by the Legco polls in December and the chief executive race in March next year. In response, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang Kwok-wai said the government must consider the infection trends at the relevant time, adding officials were also mulling emergency measures such as allowing Hongkongers to vote on the mainland. \u201cOne of the emergency plans include setting up polling stations at the border, so that those who want to vote and are unable to come back due to pandemic restrictions can still vote at the polling stations that we set up at the border,\u201d he said. Tsang said such a plan could allow elections to proceed even if there was a rebound of Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong, but he stopped short of disclosing how many polling stations there would be and who would be eligible to vote at them. A government source confirmed the plan involved installing polling stations on the Hong Kong side of the border. It would only work if mainland authorities allowed voters to enter Shenzhen \u2013 the city over the border from Hong Kong \u2013 without undergoing quarantine, the insider added. Setting up polling stations on the mainland side was not in discussion at the moment, according to the source. Under the draft legislation, the Election Committee \u2013 now tasked with not only picking the city\u2019s leader but also nominating lawmakers, and even fielding representatives of its own to the legislature \u2013 will conclude its initial five-year term on October 21, 2026. Pro-establishment lawmakers including Wong Kwok-kin, also a member of the Executive Council, and lawyer Tse Wai-chun, raised concerns over whether there would have to be a \u201cgap period\u201d following the conclusion of that term, with another chief executive election coming in 2027. Permanent Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Roy Tang Yun-kwong said city officials had received instructions from the central government confirming the 1,500 committee members elected in September this year would serve until 2026, but admitted the local administration had no idea what would happen after then. \u201cWe have been communicating with the central government, and the advice we received clearly was to \u2018leave a vacuum period\u2019 at this moment, and we must follow,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know the central government will make another decision at some point later, and we may not know it that soon.\u201d Some key amendments that raised eyebrows in the local legislation related to the composition of sectors in the Election Committee, which include representatives from various trade groups and professions. Traditional Beijing-friendly organisations and unionists in Hong Kong with a track record of mobilising pro-establishment supporters in polls emerged as the big winners, yet some lawmakers were dissatisfied that some of their key supporters were removed or not even invited onto the powerful committee. Sports, performing arts, culture and publication sector lawmaker Ma Fung-kwok said he was not only unhappy that half of the 60 seats were removed from that sector, but also that iconic and historic art groups had been left out. \u201cGroups such as the Hong Kong Institute for Promotion of Chinese Culture and sports federations in over 22 districts have been devoting themselves to the community for decades, and I would never doubt their roles as \u2018patriotic bodies\u2019 and \u2018having enough representation\u2019, but they were not involved,\u201d Ma said. Hong Kong\u2019s new Election Committee gets packed with even more Beijing allies Echoing him, lawmaker and executive councillor Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said she was also disappointed the amendments had removed some of the senior representatives in the travel sector, such as the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong. She asked if the government could re-evaluate and promise to amend the sectors list in the future. Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, her colleague in the Executive Council, also said many representatives from the catering industry had sent him letters asking for an explanation on why they were not included, as he urged the government to look at whether changes were possible. Tsang said the government overall considered three factors: whether the group was representative, held close connections with the industry and if they were capable of upholding the principle that only patriots governed the city, a key plank of Beijing\u2019s reforms. \u201cWe may not be able to fulfil everyone\u2019s expectations,\u201d he said. \u201cWe hope that legislators can deliberate and approve the bill in a pragmatic manner. The process is not completely unchangeable, but I still think we will stick according to those principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hongkongers living in mainland China may be allowed to cast their votes in future local elections at special polling stations on the city side of border if the coronavirus pandemic continues to curb travel. Officials also told lawmakers the newly empo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,144,138,339,288,194,954,120],"tags":[10424,3472,10323,10324,10331,10328,7596],"class_list":["post-99551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beijing","category-china","category-guangdong","category-hong-kong","category-medicine","category-news-chinese-law","category-shenzhen","category-travel","tag-china-general-news","tag-chinese","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-elections","tag-pandemic","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99552,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99551\/revisions\/99552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}