譚耀宗
Amid the alleged pressure from the Liaison Office which actively lobbied for Carrie Lam and speculations that he was not Beijing's favoured candidate, Tsang struggled to seek nominations from the pro-Beijing electors and had to heavily rely on the Democrats. He received a few pro-Beijing electors' support, including Liberal Party honorary chairman James Tien who was the most outspoken supporter of Tsang since the early stage of the campaign, as well as the party's honorary chairwoman Selina Chow and leader Felix Chung. He also received a nomination from Thomas Wu, son of real estate tycoon Gordon Wu of the Hopewell Holdings, the only tycoon to nominate Tsang. 123 of his total number of 160 nominations came from pro-democracy camp, of which majority of them were from the professional sector, including the Democratic Party which made it the first time a pro-democratic party to nominate an establishment candidate. On 25 February, he became the first candidate to submit his nominations. He was criticised by pro-Beijing media and politicians for taking pro-democrats' support, Tam Yiu-chung said that Tsang now clearly represented the pan-democrats while "Ta Kung Pao" editorials attacked Tsang for "making deal with the devils".