Hong Kong Democrats get questionnaires to prove poll eligibility

HONG KONG • At least seven potential pro-democracy candidates for Hong Kong's Legislative Council elections in September have received questionnaires from the government asking them to show they have not violated the city's mini-Constitution or recently imposed security law.

Mr Alvin Yeung and Mr Cheng Tat-hung of the Civic Party, Mr Kenneth Leung who plans to represent the accountancy sector, and four other opposition figures have received letters of inquiry from their electoral officers requesting that they validate their applications for the elections, according to reports in Ming Pao, HK01 and Stand News.

Mr Yeung was asked to explain his recent visit to the US where he met American officials and called for sanctions against certain Hong Kong officials, and if he will continue lobbying foreign governments, according to the letter seen by Bloomberg. It cited his social-media posts and media interviews.

"Your requests to foreign countries to make legislation to sanction the Hong Kong government is in fact pressuring the government with the help of foreign powers and inviting foreign forces to interfere in Hong Kong's internal affairs," said the letter to Mr Yeung.

It added: "How would such behaviour concur with what you declared in your nomination statement to 'uphold the Basic Law and to pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region'."

Beijing passed a national security law late last month for the former British colony, criminalising subversion and collusion with foreign forces, with the maximum punishment being a life sentence.

The city's pro-democracy parties this month held a two-day primary in an effort to narrow a surge of candidates ahead of the September elections. The ballot drew more than 600,000 voters.

Hong Kong's government and China's top agency in the city have said the process could violate the new security measures and pledged to investigate and possibly prosecute the primary's organisers.

The unofficial voting process was designed to overcome fractures in the opposition movement between traditional democrats and more radical so-called "localists", and present an organised slate of candidates that could then benefit from the momentum generated by last year's historic protests to oust pro-establishment rivals.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on July 26, 2020, with the headline Hong Kong Democrats get questionnaires to prove poll eligibility. Subscribe