Tsang puts CE election down to one-horse race

Only one candidate will run in the chief executive election, former Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing has predicted, but Beijing has yet to home in on the right candidate.

The veteran pro-Beijing politician said in a webcast he believed the reason that authorities had not announced the nomination period for the chief executive election is due to the central government not having decided on the perfect candidate.

Had Beijing already shortlisted a candidate, it would have been reasonable for it to spread the word so that everyone would know who the "chosen one" was, Tsang said.

He believed that Chief Executive Carrie Lam would play ball if Beijing wanted her to step down.

That the race has not started shows that Beijing has yet to find the perfect fit for the job, he said.

Tsang added that he could not see the benefit of having more than one candidate running for the top spot.

He said Beijing would not want to see any conflict within the pro-establishment camp with more than one candidate running. It could also risk candidates not securing enough nominations to meet the threshold to run.

The election will take place on March 27 but the government has yet to gazette when the nomination period will take place.

The Electoral Affairs Commission proposed in October that the nomination period should last 16 days, from February 15 to March 2.

Under the law, the election should take place at least 21 days after the end of nominations, which means that the latest date for the 16-day nomination period to begin is February 20.

Speaking before the Executive Council meeting yesterday, Lam said there was still time to announce the nomination period and an announcement would be made later on.

Lam has yet to announce whether she will stand for re-election to a second five-year term.

Businessman Checkley Sin Kwok-lam, producer of the Ip Man series starring Donnie Yen Ji-dan, announced last week he would like to join the race for the city's top job.

He said he would like to improve people's living standards by tackling housing and medical issues.

It remains unclear if he will get enough backing to join the election.

After the electoral changes, candidates will have to secure at least 188 nominations within the Election Committee - with a minimum of 15 nominations from across each of the five sectors - in order to run in the CE election. Each member of the 1,448-member committee can only nominate one candidate.