Establishment-leaning Hong Kong education group registers for Election Committee polls, vows to break opposition ‘monopoly’
- Education Professional Alliance says it will represent different voices in its subsector, but insists opposition supporters welcome to join
- Elections will only be held in particular subsectors if candidates outnumber seats, but with three days left in nomination period, none meet that threshold
A group of establishment-leaning Hong Kong principals have signed up as candidates for seats on the powerful 1,500-member committee that will pick the city’s leader, vowing to end the opposition’s domination of their subsector and to strengthen national education in schools.
As of Monday afternoon, 598 candidates had signed up or indicated interest in running for seats on the Election Committee. At least 108, or 18 per cent, had nominated Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor when she ran for the job in 2017. Only two backed Lam’s opponent, John Tsang Chun-wah, a former finance chief, who received 160 nominations to Lam’s 579.
An election will only be held for a particular committee subsector if candidates outnumber the seats available. But as of Monday, three days before the nomination period ends, none of the body’s 40 subsectors had enough candidates to meet that threshold.
The 13 members of the newly formed Education Professional Alliance – drawn from organisations such as the pro-establishment Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers (HKFEW) and the pressure group Education Convergence – who signed up on Monday were the only ones to announce their candidacy in the education subsector so far.
Wong Kam-leung, chairman of the HKFEW, told a press conference that the alliance represented different voices in the subsector and would “break the monopolisation” of the Professional Teachers’ Union [PTU] in the field.
