Former aide of Starry Lee, chairwoman of Hong Kong’s largest pro-establishment party, sentenced to eight months in jail for bribing voters with ‘lucky bags’
- Wong Wai-ha, 54, and her co-defendant were sentenced on Wednesday for conspiring to offer an advantage to others ahead of a Legco by-election in 2018
- The pair offered Sham Shui Po residents freebies if they voted for the DAB candidate
A former assistant to the chairwoman of Hong Kong’s largest pro-establishment party has been jailed for eight months for bribing voters to back its candidate in a Legislative Council by-election three years ago.
Wong Wai-ha’s application for bail pending an appeal was also rejected during Wednesday’s sentencing at West Kowloon Court, with the presiding magistrate describing the evidence against the 54-year-old defendant as “irrefutable”.
Wong, who at the time of the offence was an assistant of Starry Lee Wai-king, the chairwoman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), was found guilty earlier this month along with co-defendant Deng Yimei of conspiring to offer an advantage to others at an election.
Deng, a 44-year-old housewife from mainland China, was handed the same jail sentence on Wednesday after pleading for leniency based on her limited understanding of democracy.
The pair were found to have plotted the bribery scheme by offering “lucky bags” to residents of a Sham Shui Po public housing estate in an attempt to induce them to vote for candidate Vincent Cheng Wing-shun, who was representing the DAB in a March 11, 2018 poll.
