Hong Kong's chief pro-democracy party barred from local elections

Pro-democracy parties won the last district council elections in 2019 in a landslide during the peak of massive and at times violent protests calling for greater political freedoms.

Since then, Beijing has moved to quell dissent in the city, imposing a national security law and overhauling the electoral process in a way that allows it to weed out those considered disloyal to the Chinese government.

To stand for the 88 directly elected seats, candidates must undergo a strict two-week nomination process and receive the approval of at least nine members of three government-appointed committees within their constituency.

Critics, including the United States and European Union, see the revamp as further consolidating Beijing’s authoritarian grip on the city.

By Monday evening, the Democratic Party — the oldest and largest group in the pro-democracy camp — said all six of their candidates had “failed to secure sufficient nominations”.

“Although some candidates received nominations from some of the three committees’ members, they couldn’t meet the requirement,” said chairperson Lo Kin-hei.

Of the 172 candidates who have applied to take part in December’s elections, more than 70 percent are themselves members of the three committees, according to a tally kept by AFP.

More than a quarter of the candidates who successfully entered to stand in December’s direct elections were from DAB, Hong Kong’s largest pro-Beijing party, which declined to disclose how many of their party members are in the committees.

Kwok Wai-shing, a candidate with small pro-democracy party ADPL, said he has not been able to get any nominators to support him.

“The system is asking me to get nominations from my rivals, would they do that?” he said. “The scale is tilted and people can see that clearly.”

City leader John Lee last week defended the election’s “openness and fairness”.

“The candidates (who haven’t got any nominations) should study themselves and find out their problems,” Lee said, adding that nominators had to consider if a candidate is “someone who loves China and Hong Kong”.

In 2021, more than 300 directly elected district council members resigned or were unseated by the government after the authorities demanded that they pledge loyalty to Beijing.