Hong Kong electoral officials put independence seekers’ integrity to the test
John Chan says the primary aim in introducing the controversial form for Legislative Council candidates is probably not to screen out radicals, but to force them to conform to the norms – or suffer the legal consequences
Last week, High Court Judge Thomas Au Hing-cheung refused to hold an urgent hearing on the application for a judicial review of the Electoral Affairs Commission’s sudden decision to require an extra declaration from Legislative Council election candidates. That forced one applicant – Hong Kong Indigenous spokesman Edward Leung Tin-kei – to sign the form. However, it did not prevent him from being disqualified this week.
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Nominations for September’s election have now closed, and validated candidates include those who have signed as well as those who did not sign the form, which highlighted articles of the Basic Law acknowledging Hong Kong as an inalienable part of China.
Many see the form as an Electoral Affairs Commission tool to screen out those who refuse to sign. But with validated candidates including both those who signed and those who did not, and with sporadic questions targeted at a few but not all would-be candidates, it appears that the commission has no uniform criteria in dealing with known independence seekers and separatists.
The fact that only six have been barred from running because of their support for independence or separatism shows that the ultimate goal of introducing the form is not only to screen candidates. There is something else.
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It is inconceivable that the administration would not have sought legal opinion before the sudden introduction of the form two days before nomination opened, not only on the form’s legality, but also on other aspects, including the follow-up action to a number of possible scenarios. These include: one, a candidate simply refusing to sign; two, refusing to sign and vowing to continue to advocate independence for Hong Kong; three, signing but carrying on with actions in contravention of the relevant Basic Law articles during the election period or after being elected.
