The 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council election was originally scheduled on 6 September 2020 until it was postponed by the government. On 31 July 2020, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that she was invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to postpone the election under the emergency powers granted to her by it, citing the recent resurgence of the COVID-19 cases, adding that the move was supported by Beijing.
Despite Lam's denial of any political calculation, the delay was seen by pro-democrats as politically motivated, who aimed to achieve a "35+" majority (obtaining more than 35 out of the 70 seats in the Legislative Council) by riding the 2019 District Council landslide on a wave of massive protests against the government and concerns about the sweeping new national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong. It was also seen as the latest in a rapid series of aggressive moves by the Beijing authorities to thwart opposition momentum and neutralise the pro-democracy movement. Just prior to the announcement, 12 opposition candidates were disqualified from running in the election and four ex-members of pro-independence student group Studentlocalism aged 16 to 21 were arrested under the new national security law for making pro-independence posts on social media.
Background.
Anti-extradition protests and District Council landslide.
In mid-2019, a push by the Carrie Lam administration for an amendment of the extradition law created an unprecedented political crisis in Hong Kong. More than a million people marched against the bill in mid June, with violent clashes between the police and the protesters occurring outside the Central Government Complex on 12 June.
The protests were maintained and escalated as Lam refused to fully withdraw the bill, resulting in strong anti-government sentiment that fed into the November District Council election, where the pro-Beijing parties suffered historic defeat, losing about two-thirds of their seats. The pro-democrats jumped from around 124 to about 388 seats and took control of 17 of the 18 District Councils as a result.
The stunning results greatly boosted the morale of the pro-democrats who immediately saw the possibility of securing a first-ever majority in the Legislative Council in the 2020 election. Benny Tai, co-initiator of the 2014 Occupy protests, suggested that the pro-democrats could target winning more than half of the seats and use that advantage to block the government's bills, including expected legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law, and to pressure the government to implement the five key demands of the protest movement. He proposed a primary within the pro-democracy camp, which was later held. He also initiated "ThunderGo plan 2.0", which mirrored his coordinating mechanism of "smart voters" in the 2016 election to strategic voting to increase the chance of the pro-democracy candidates.
National security legislation.
In early 2020, the Chinese national government in Beijing reorganised the personnel of its representative organs in Hong Kong by replacing the director of its Liaison Office in Hong Kong, Wang Zhimin, with former Shanxi Communist Party secretary Luo Huining, while the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Zhang Xiaoming ceded his position to former Zhejiang Communist Party secretary Xia Baolong, with Luo and Zhang becoming his deputies. Political analysts speculated that one of the key tasks for Luo and Xia was to make sure that the pro-Beijing camp retained its majority in the legislature in the coming election.
The two Beijing agencies in Hong Kong were outspoken in urging the Hong Kong government to implement new national security law. In May 2020, the central government initiated a plan for implementing the national security law for Hong Kong which would criminalise "separatism, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference", which many interpreted as a crackdown on civil liberties, government critics, and the independence movement. Pro-democracy camp and various national governments expressed concern that the Chinese plans would undermine Hong Kong autonomy and the "One Country, Two Systems" principle. Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung said the details of the legislation show "Beijing's power is stabbing right into Hong Kong's judicial and administrative organs like a sword." He warned that "Hong Kong’s worst nightmare has been mapped out" and added that the lack of details on specific criminal actions was "extremely worrying." The National People's Congress approved the plans on 29 May 2020 and the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) subsequently convened for drafting the details of the law.
In June, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang suggested that anyone who opposed the coming national security law would be disqualified from September's Legislative Council elections. He said that it was everyone's duty to safeguard national security, and the imposition of security laws was "only natural". Alvin Yeung described Tsang's comments as a form of "illogical and irresponsible intimidation" of the potential opposition candidates. On 30 June, the NPCSC unanimously passed the national security law without fully disclosing the content of the law. Hours after the news, leading members of the Demosistō party, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, Agnes Chow and Jeffrey Ngo announced their resignation from the party. Later that day, the party announced its complete disbandment, saying that the resignation of several key members in light of the national security law made it difficult for it to continue its operations. Law, the former chairman of the party, decided to flee Hong Kong and dropped out from the pro-democracy primaries in response to the security law.
On 29 July, four former members of pro-independence student group Studentlocalism aged 16 to 21, including 19-year-old Tony Chung, were arrested over the content of social media posts, which suggested they would use all means to establish an independent republic of Hong Kong and unite all pro-independence political groups. Senior superintendent of the new national security department of the police force Steve Li cited Article 21 of the security law as stating that making statements that promote secession would constitute incitement, and it is not necessary to assess if someone was actually motivated by such content.
On 31 July, Chinese state media reported that Hong Kong police had ordered the arrest of six pro-democracy activists living in exile on suspicion of violating the national security law, including Nathan Law, former British consulate staffer Simon Cheng, pro-independence activists Ray Wong, Wayne Chan, Honcques Laus, and Samuel Chu. The report said the six were sought for "incitement to secession and collusion with foreign forces".
Pro-democracy primaries.
Organised by Benny Tai and former legislator Au Nok-hin and conducted by Power for Democracy, the pro-democracy primaries were held on 11 and 12 July. A total number of 52 people candidates from all over the spectrum in the pro-democracy movement participated in the primaries. Over 590,000 electronic ballots and more than 20,000 paper ballots were recorded throughout the two-day vote, more than 13 per cent of the total number of registered voters and far exceeding the organisers' expected turnout of 170,000 despite the security law and legal threats.
Traditional pro-democrat parties lost ground to localist camp parties, with many veteran democrats performing below expectations. Democratic Party incumbent Helena Wong only came seventh in her Kowloon West constituency and former legislator "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats managed only ninth place in New Territories East, for which only the top seven candidates would run in the general election. Incumbent legislator Joseph Lee of the Health Services constituency also lost to Winnie Yu of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, a labour union in Hong Kong. With many newcoming localists emerging on top, an unofficial six-person alliance led by former Demosistō secretary-general Joshua Wong, incumbent legislator Eddie Chu, incumbent District Councillor Lester Shum, former reporter Gwyneth Ho, student activist Sunny Cheung and incumbent District Councillor Tiffany Yuen endorsed by withdrawn candidate Nathan Law, became the biggest winner with all of them coming either top or second in their respective constituencies.
COVID-19 pandemic and resurgence.
The months-long anti-government protests and the alleged initial mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak cost Carrie Lam's administration substantial public support. A Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute survey in late January found 75 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied with the government's response to the outbreak, while Lam's approval rating sunk to just 9% in late February, the lowest on record. In February 2020, a confidential report by Carrie Lam to the central government revealed that Lam had attempted to win back public trust and support by effective handling of the coronavirus outbreak, which she believed would enable a political turnaround for the coming election.
On 5 May, two former Chief Executives Tung Chee-hwa and Leung Chun-ying launched a pro-Beijing alliance called the Hong Kong Coalition. The alliance was co-sponsored by 1,545 representatives of various sectors including senior politicians, former government officials, university heads and tycoons. It said it aimed to "get Hong Kong start again" by boosting the declining economy and uniting the divided society. It also announced to give away 10 million face masks across all 18 districts of Hong Kong. Political scientist Ivan Choy believed the alliance was set up as a part of the electioneering of the pro-Beijing camp in the coming election and to support Beijing's Hong Kong policy.
In mid July amid another spike of new confirmed coronavirus cases in the city, Tam Yiu-chung, the sole representative from Hong Kong on NPCSC, suggested that the government should not rule out postponing the upcoming election. Echoed by other pro-Beijing politicians, Tam said elderly people would not go to vote out of fear of being infected. He also said that many elderly people had migrated to live in the Greater Bay Area and would prefer not to return to Hong Kong to vote, given that the city implemented a 14-day quarantine requirement for incoming travellers, denying any criticism that the pro-Beijing camp was afraid of losing the election. Tanya Chan, Civic Party legislator and convenor of the pro-democracy camp in the legislature, said the pro-Beijing camp was urging the postponement of the LegCo election as they knew they would lose. She noted that many places, including Queensland, Australia; South Korea; and Singapore, had run their elections amid the pandemic earlier this year. Chief Executive Carrie Lam has defended her decision, saying that 68 countries or areas in the world delayed elections while only 49 went ahead as planned, although journalists have pointed out that the outbreak in Hong Kong was not as severe in comparison.
Nominations and disqualifications.
In the two-week nomination period from 18 to 31 July 2020 after the announcement of postponing the election, the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) received a total of 184 nominations, of which 99 were in the geographical constituencies and 85 in the functional constituencies. Two nominees on the Law Ting-fai ticket withdrew on 31 July while 12 nominees were invalidated by the returning officers.
On 30 July, one day before the end of the nomination period and the government announcement of delaying the election, the nominations of 12 opposition candidates were invalidated by the returning officers, including those of four incumbent Legislative Council members - Alvin Yeung, Kwok Ka-ki, Dennis Kwok and Kenneth Leung - as well as activists Joshua Wong and Ventus Lau. Incumbent District Councillors Cheng Tat-hung, Fergus Leung, Tiffany Yuen and Lester Shum were also barred from running, as well as former reporter Gwyneth Ho and Civic Passion's Cheng Kam-mun. The actions sparked a political storm and a round of international condemnation. The disqualifications were declared as based on either the candidates having advocated or promoted Hong Kong independence, self-determination as an option for self-determination; solicited intervention by foreign governments into Hong Kong's affairs; expressed "an objection in principle" to the legislation of the national security law; expressed an intention to exercise the functions of a LegCo member by indiscriminately voting down all government legislative proposals, appointments, funding applications and budgets, after securing a majority in the LegCo, in order to force the government to accede to certain political demands; or refused to recognise the People's Republic of China's sovereignty over the Hong Kong.
The last two days of the nomination period saw an influx of pro-democracy candidates submitting their nominations, in light of the 12 candidates being disqualified and many others' nominations still under review by the returning officers. It was widely speculated that many of these nominees were backup options for the disqualified or potentially disqualified candidates.
Postponement.
On 31 July 2020, the last day of the nomination period in the electoral process, Carrie Lam announced her invocation of the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to postpone the election for