Preliminary results of the opposition camp's primaries show two pan-democratic candidates - Mr Roy Kwong and activist Joshua Wong - to be leading, with full results expected today, event organisers have said.
Unofficial data sent to the media yesterday shows Democratic Party's Mr Kwong, who is a lawmaker, to be the front runner for one of the five "super seats" in the Legislative Council (Legco) election, and Mr Wong, who is contesting in Kowloon East, with the highest vote share in a district.
Democratic Party's Ted Hui was leading the fight in the Hong Kong Island district, and activists Jimmy Sham and Eddie Chu topped the polls for Kowloon West and New Territories West respectively. Former Stand News reporter Gwyneth Ho led in New Territories East.
The body helping with the primaries,the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, said paper ballots for Hong Kong Island had been counted and it was tallying votes for other districts.
"All problematic votes will be verified in front of all candidates (or their representatives) before the final round of vote-counting is conducted," the institute said, adding that results would be announced today at noon or so.
The 2014 Occupy Central movement's co-founder Benny Tai, an associate professor at The University of Hong Kong, is expected to announce the results of the primaries together with former lawmaker Au Nok Hin.
Over 610,000 people turned up over the weekend, waiting patiently in line to cast their votes in the primaries, despite the government's warnings about breaching the national security law and amid a spike in new Covid-19 infections.
The turnout was more than 13 per cent of registered voters and more than triple that of organisers' expectations, prompting Mr Au to remark that "this shows how brave Hong Kongers are".
Voters in the unofficial primaries will decide the pan-democratic candidates to be fielded in the Sept 6 Legco election. This comes even as there are worries that the candidates could be disqualified.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam warned yesterday that the primaries could amount to an act of subversion under the security law, adding that the authorities are investigating complaints.
If convicted by the courts, violators would be barred from seeking or holding public office for an unspecified period.
Yesterday, Professor Tai, one of the organisers of the primaries, said he believes the opposition camp might snap up 45 of the 70 Legco seats. This, as pro-establishment supporters lean towards the opposition camp following the roll-out of the new security law.
"Now they may be also very dissatisfied with the present situation, with the enactment of the new national security law, so how can they defend the core values of Hong Kong? Ironically, this time they have to vote for... candidates of the democratic camp," said Prof Tai.
When asked what would happen if the candidates picked through the primaries were to be disqualified before the Legco election, he said they can nominate their choices to run for the seat.
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