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The 2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 25 March 2012 to select the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE), the highest office in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), by a 1,193-member Election Committee (EC) to replace the incumbent Chief Executive. Won by the former non-official convener of the Executive Council of Hong Kong Leung Chun-ying, the election was the most competitive as it was the first election with more than one pro-Beijing candidate since the 1996 election.
The incumbent Chief Executive Donald Tsang had been elected to serve the remainder of the five-year term which was left unserved, due to the midterm resignation of his predecessor Tung Chee-hwa. He had served his own full five year term and was ineligible to run for a re-election to a full third term as stated in the Basic Law. Leung Chun-ying, who was seen as the underdog, ran a successful campaign against Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang who was seen as the favorite candidate by Beijing officials and business tycoons. The pan-democrats also successfully fielded their own candidate, The Democratic Party chairman, and Legislative Councilor Albert Ho, who won the primary against another pan-democrat legislator Frederick Fung, former chairman of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) on 8 January 2012.
The campaign was marked by scandals, dirty tactics, and smears from both Tang's and Leung's sides, notably Henry Tang illegal basement controversy.[1][2] In the wake of the scandals which damaged Tang's popularity, the election was ultimately won by Leung Chun-ying, who received 689 electoral votes in the Election Committee with the help of the central government's Liaison Office.
Eligibility, affiliation and election mechanism
According to Article 44 of the Basic Law, the Chief Executive must be a Chinese citizen[3][4] who is a permanent resident of the HKSAR with no right of abode in any foreign country. The individual must be at least 40 years old and has been residing in Hong Kong for a continuous period of no less than 20 years.[3] Article 47 further requires that the Chief Executive be a person of integrity, dedicated to his or her duties.[3] The 1,200-member Election Committee which was elected in the 2011 Election Committee Subsector Elections, which commenced its term of office on 1 February 2012, is composed of 1,044 members elected from 35 sub-sectors, 60 members nominated by the religious sub-sector and 96 ex-officio members, who are members of the Legislative Council or Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress. The election committee has no legitimacy in the eyes of the general public, according to Christine Loh.[5]
Nominations for the 2012 election opened on 14 February and closed on 29 February. Each candidacy for Chief Executive must be supported by at least 150 nominations from members of the Election Committee; no EC member may nominate more than one candidate.[4] The election proper takes place by secret ballot, with each EC member having one vote, on 25 March 2012. The successful candidate shall have secured valid votes from more than half the total stipulated number of members, namely 601 votes. If the first round of voting fails to give rise to an outright winner, a second round of voting shall be held the same day after eliminating the lowest-scoring candidate. If a second round still fails to produce an outright winner, the election will be re-run. For this, nominations will reopen, and balloting will take place six weeks later – in this case on 6 May.
Under current laws, candidates are not required to disclose their political affiliations; however, section 31 of Chief Executive Election Ordinance (Cap 569) stipulates that a person elected as the Chief Executive must "publicly make a statutory declaration to the effect that he is not a member of any political party".[6]
Candidates
Nominees
| Candidate | Born | Party | Most recent position | Campaign | Nominations received | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Henry Tang 唐英年 |
6 September 1952 (age 59) |
Nonpartisan (Pro-Beijing) |
Chief Secretary for Administration (2007–2011) |
 Announced: 26 November 2011 Nominated: 20 February 2012 |
390 / 1,193 (33%)
| |
 |
Leung Chun-ying 梁振英 |
12 August 1954 (age 57) |
Nonpartisan (Pro-Beijing) |
Non-official Convenor of the Executive Council (1999–2011) |
 Announced: 27 November 2011 Nominated: 23 February 2012 |
305 / 1,193 (26%)
| |
 |
Albert Ho 何俊仁 |
1 December 1951 (age 60) |
Democratic Party (Pan-democracy) |
Member of the Legislative Council and Democratic Party Chairman (1998–2016; 2006–2012) |
 Announced: 4 October 2011 Won primary: 8 January 2012 Nominated: 14 February 2012 |
188 / 1,193 (16%)
| |
Withdrawn
| Candidate | Born | Party | Most recent position | Campaign | Nominations received | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Regina Ip 葉劉淑儀 |
24 August 1950 (age 61) |
New People's Party (Pro-Beijing) |
Member of the Legislative Council and New People's Party Chairwoman (2008–present; 2011–present) |
Announced: 20 February 2012 Withdrew: 29 February 2012 |
Withdrawn | |
 |
Frederick Fung 馮檢基 |
17 March 1953 (age 59) |
Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (Pan-democracy) |
Member of the Legislative Council (2000–2016) |
Announced: 8 December 2011 Withdrew: 8 January 2012 Lost the pan-democracy primary |
Withdrawn | |
Other minor candidates included Kan Kit-hung (簡傑鴻),[7] Yu Wing-yin (余永賢), consultant of the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute,[8][9][10] Wu Sai-chuen (胡世全), a former DAB member[11] and Roger Chan Yuet-tung (陳乙東).[12] None of them was successfully nominated.
Expressed interest but did not run
- Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, member of the National People's Congress Standing Committee
- Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, President of the Legislative Council
Pre-nomination events
The non-official convenor of the Executive Council Leung Chun-ying announced his plan to run on 9 September and resigned from his post in the government in mid-September 2011.[13] Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang, considered the first choice of Beijing, resigned from the government in late September 2011.[14] Rita Fan and Regina Ip also said they were considering running for the post, but dropped out on 15 December. Fan lost a lot of public support and respect by taking six months to consider her candidacy. After much prevarication-induced speculation, Fan announced that she would not participate because her age and health would become concerns into the CE term; and she endorsed Henry Tang instead.[15]
Pan-democrats' primary
Civic Party legislator Alan Leong who contested the 2007 Chief Executive election expressed an interest in standing again but later announced that the Civic Party would not join the election. Albert Ho, the chairman of the Democratic Party decided to run for the post on 4 October 2011.[16] Frederick Fung, former chairman of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL), also expressed his interest in running for the post, and officially announced his decision to participate in the election on 8 December 2011.
After winning over 150 seats in the Election Committee subsector elections, the pan-democrats conducted the "Pan-dem Chief Executive Primary Election" to decide on a unified candidate for the pan-democrat camp on 8 January 2012. The organising committee consisted of 7 members, representing the Democratic Party, the Civic Party, the ADPL, the Neo Democrats, the Professional Commons, the Power for Democracy and the Hong Kong Democratic Development Network respectively. The 4 co-organising political parties agreed to nominate the winner of the primary election.[17] However, some pan-democratic parties, including the League of Social Democrats, the People Power and the Labour Party, were against the primary election and the "small-circle election" at all. All Hong Kong permanent residents aged 18 or over were eligible to vote at the 74 polling stations; 33,932 votes were cast. The result combined the public voting and the poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme between 3 and 6 January with equal weights. Albert Ho won with 67.2% in the voting and 54.6% in the poll.[18][19]