Voting rate in CE election passes 50 percent

More than half the nearly-1,500 Election Committee members cast ballots in the first hour of the Chief Executive election, meaning that if the votes are all valid, sole candidate John Lee already has the 750 votes he needs to win the top job.

The main voting station at the Wan Chai Convention and Exhibition Centre is open from 9am until 11:30am.

Election authorities said as of 10am, 871 Election Committee members had cast their votes, representing a voter turnout rate of almost 60 percent. The voting started at 9am and will close at 11.30am.

The head of the Electoral Affairs Commission, Barnabas Fung, said six Election Committee members have registered to cast their ballots from a special booth at the Penny’s Bay quarantine facility.

“Their ballots will be thoroughly disinfected before being sent to the main vote-counting station here in Wan Chai,” Fung said.

He added that the entire vote counting process is expected to take around one to one and a half hours.

One of the eligible voters, Allan Zeman from the Lan Kwai Fong Group, said he expects John Lee to win the support of the majority of Election Committee members.

“I expect most people will vote for him… he’s a good man and he’s the only candidate of course. I really feel that he’ll be very good for the next five years for Hong Kong,” he told RTHK.

Third Side lawmaker Tik Chi Yuen, who claims to be non-establishment, also said he’s throwing his support behind the former chief secretary.

“In the future, cooperation is important. In the past, we had different voices and we could not come together and it will not benefit Hong Kong’s development. So at this moment, we support Mr Lee. We want to demonstrate that [people with] different opinions, different voices, can join hands and work for the benefit of Hong Kong,” he said.

Meanwhile, security has been tightened around the city, with the police conducting random high-profile patrols as part of what they described as “counter terrorism measures to defend the SAR”.

Road blocks have also been set up at major trunk roads across Hong Kong.

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Last updated: 2022-05-08 HKT 10:17