page_title: 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election
section_title: Late January to early February 2017: Canvassing nominations
hierarchical_section_title: 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election / Pre-nomination events / Late January to early February 2017: Canvassing nominations
caption_attribution_description: 中文（香港）‎: 香港激進民主派立法會議員梁國雄宣佈爭取公民提名選特首。
context_page_description: The 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 26 March 2017 for the 5th term of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, the highest office of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Former Chief Secretary for Administration Carrie Lam beat former Financial Secretary John Tsang and retired judge Woo Kwok-hing, receiving 777 votes from the 1,194-member Election Committee.
  The two front-runners, Lam and Tsang, emerged after incumbent Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying surprisingly announced he would not run for a second term. Both resigned from their posts in the government. Despite leading in the polls, Tsang struggled to receive nominations from the pro-Beijing electors and had to rely heavily on pro-democrats. Lam, with the PRC's Liaison Office actively lobbying for her, attracted 580 nominations, almost half in the Election Committee and only 21 votes short of winning the final election, while Tsang and Woo received 165 and 180 nominations respectively, most of which came from the pro-democracy camp which consisted of about 320 members.
context_section_description: After days of candidates meeting with the Election Committee members from different sectors to canvass at least 150 nominations in order to enter the race, by 27 January multiple reports speculated that Carrie Lam had already secured 300 to 400 nominations. Heung Yee Kuk and the New Territories Association of Societies (NTAS) stated that they inclined to nominate Lam. Together with pro-Beijing parties Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), and Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA), as well as Import and Export subsector and Sports and Culture sub-subsectors, Lam was estimated to grab more than 500 nominations. In contrast, despite topping the public opinion polls, John Tsang was speculated to have secured fewer than 100 nominations. Tsang stated "[t]here is no reason for me to believe that the central government does not trust me," as pro-Beijing electors felt pressured if nominate him amid the speculation that he was not Beijing's choice. Regina Ip was speculated to hold about 20 nominations from her New People's Party, while Woo Kwok-hing, who had not revealed any electors' endorsement, repeatedly said he was confident in receiving enough nominations.
  Hours before Carrie Lam's large-scale election rally on 3 February, John Tsang launched a crowdfunding website. The website went down within minutes due to overloading. The public responded actively, with more than one million Hong Kong dollars being raised in just the first few hours. Former Secretary for Development Mak Chai-kwong, despite being the former top aide to Carrie Lam, also showed support for Tsang in a Facebook video. Under the campaign slogan of "We Connect", including the catchphrases "We Care, We Listen, We Act", Lam's campaign rally was attended by nearly 800 pro-Beijing figures and tycoons from both the Henry Tang and Leung Chun-ying camps in the last election. She also revealed a star-studded campaign team, which included a council of chairpersons consisting of Ronald Arculli, Laura Cha, Moses Cheng, Jonathan Choi Koon-sum, Timothy Fok, Lam Tai-fai, Eddy Li Sau-hung, Victor Lo, Lo Man-tuen, Anthony Wu, Yu Kwok-chun and Allan Zeman; senior advisers consisting of heavyweights including senior pro-Beijing politicians including Chan Wing-kee, Cheng Yiu-tong, Hung Chao-hong and Rita Fan, tycoons such as Robin Chan, Aron Harilela, Xu Rongmao, Robert Kuok, Peter Lam, Lee Shau-kee, Vincent Lo, Robert Ng, Peter Woo and Charles Yeung and others such as Lawrence Lau, Lau Chin-shek, Li Fung-ying and Joseph Yam.
  On 5 February, Woo Kwok-hing updated his election platform, including the implementation of the Basic Law Article 22, which states that no mainland authorities can interfere in Hong Kong internal affairs. On the next day, John Tsang unveiled his 75-page election platform entitled "Convergence of Hearts, Proactive Enablement", with the promise of revisiting Article 23 national security legislation and political reform. Other policies included introducing a progressive profit tax, developing New Territories North and East Lantau and abolishing all Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA) and Basic Competency Assessment (BCA) tests, among others.
  Legislator "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats (LSD) formally announced his Chief Executive bid on 8 February through a "civil nomination" mechanism conducted by post-Occupy group Citizens United in Action, in which he would seek to secure 37,790 votes from members of the public, one per cent of the city's registered voters before he would canvass for the nominations from the Election Committee. He explained his decision was to urge the pro-democrat electors not to vote for any pro-establishment candidate who could not represent the pro-democracy camp at all even if they view as "lesser evil", as some democrats had inclined to support John Tsang, the relatively liberal pro-establishment candidate to prevent hardliner Carrie Lam from winning. He also aimed to reflect the spirit of the 2014 Umbrella Mov
caption: Pro-democracy legislator Leung Kwok-hung announced his candidacy through the "civil nomination" campaign on 8 February.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5300", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2017:02:08 10:40:21", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "15236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "15860", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10354", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "53/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "12800", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:02:08 10:40:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:02:08 10:40:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "1", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "49/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "90", "EXIF SubSecTime": "70", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "70", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "70", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2992", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "15204", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "135", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}