Hong Kong’s economic development and its global ties have emerged as the common concerns in the first Legislative Council election forum organised by the biggest local political party.
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The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) on Monday hosted all 50 candidates running for 40 Legco seats in the Election Committee constituency. They presented their political platforms to the party’s more than 100 committee members ahead of next month’s poll.
The forum was held hours before the government announced that all 161 election hopefuls had been cleared to compete for the legislature’s 90 seats on December 7.
Aside from those running in the Election Committee constituency, 51 candidates will vie for the 20 directly elected seats in the geographical constituencies, while 60 will contest the 30 seats in the trade-based functional constituencies.
Under Beijing’s overhauled “patriots-only” electoral system, contestants in the Election Committee constituency need to woo more than 1,400 members for their votes.
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The two-hour forum, which was live-streamed on social media, did not involve any debates and the candidates did not take questions from the media.