The 2016 Election Committee subsector elections were held on 11 December 2016 for 1,034 of the 1,200 members of the Election Committee (EC) which is responsible for electing the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE) in the 2017 election.

Quick Facts 1,034 (of the 1,200) seats in the Election Committee 601 seats needed for a majority, Registered ...

2016 Election Committee subsector elections

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1,034 (of the 1,200) seats in the Election Committee 601 seats needed for a majority
Registered	246,440 1.21%
Turnout	107,841 (46.53%) 18.93pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Starry Lee Lam Shuk-yee Wu Chi-wai Party DAB FTU Democratic Alliance Pro-Beijing Pro-Beijing Democrats 300+ Seats won 53 44 15   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Alvin Yeung Felix Chung Lo Wai-kwok Party Civic Liberal BPA Alliance Democrats 300+ Pro-Beijing Pro-Beijing Seats won 14 13 10

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Although incumbent Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying announced, two days before the election, that he would not be standing, the pro-democrats, whose campaign theme was opposition to Leung serving a second term, won a record quarter of the seats on the EC under the banner of "Democrats 300+" on a nearly 20 per cent surge in turnout over 2011.^[1]

The pro-democracy camp pocketed 205 seats in the 1,200-strong Election Committee and nominated Albert Ho of the Democratic Party to run against Leung Chun-ying and Henry Tang in 2012. The main goal for the pro-democrats in this election was to grab more than 300 seats to increase the chance of blocking the incumbent Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to re-elected. In order to do that, the camp tended not to send a candidate in the election and become a "kingmaker" by boosting the chance for an alternative establishment candidate.^[2]

The six pro-democrats elected to the Legislative Council in functional constituencies in September, including Edward Yiu who took the seat in the traditional pro-Beijing sector and Leung Chun-ying's stronghold Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape, formed an alliance called the Professionals Guild to coordinate candidates to contest in the Election Committee election. The victory in the Legislative Council functional constituencies encouraged the pro-democrats to take a more progressive strategy in the professional sector, in which the pro-democrats traditionally had more advantages.^[2] The pro-democrat professionals and activists also formed a loose coalition called "Democrats 300+" hoping to snatch over 300 seats in the committee.^[3]

Some 300 candidates had also voiced opposition towards Leung Chun-ying re-election.^[3] Only 189 out of 305 of those who nominated Leung in 2012 sought to join the Election Committee this year.^[4] On 9 December, two days before the election, Leung announced he would not seek re-election, citing family reasons.^[5]

The Election Committee consisted of 1,034 members elected from 35 subsectors, 60 members nominated by the Religious subsector and 106 ex officio members. (Hong Kong deputies from the National People's Congress and Legislative Council of Hong Kong members). As the term of office commenced on 1 February 2016, the 1,200 member Election Committee was formed by 38 Election Committee Subsectors:^[6]

Note: Figures in brackets denotes the number of members.

Number of members nominated by the six designated bodies of the religious subsector:

• Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong (10 members)
• Chinese Muslim Cultural and Fraternal Association (10 members)
• Hong Kong Christian Council (10 members)
• The Hong Kong Taoist Association (10 members)
• The Confucian Academy (10 members)
• The Hong Kong Buddhist Association (10 members)

The nomination period was from 8 to 14 November 2016. A total number of 1,539 nominations were validated, while ten nominations were ruled invalid by the Returning Officers which included the former Chinese University of Hong Kong Students' Union president Tommy Cheung Sau-yin who led the seven-member "Student United 2017" and six members of the pro-democratic "Progressive Engineering" due to their "insufficient connection" with the Higher Education and Engineering subsectors.^[7]

One nomination from the 18-member Import and Export subsector was also invalidated, which made the number of the nominated candidates of the Import and Export subsector one less than the number of seats allocated to it. Since there was no provision in the Chief Executive Election Ordinance which allowed a by-election to fill the remaining seat, the seat would be vacant.^[8]

Among the 1,539 candidates, 300 of those were returned uncontested and voting for the 12 subsectors and the Sports sub-subsector would not be held.^[8] For the six designated bodies of the religious subsector, four of them were uncontested. The Returning Officer arranged lots drawing for the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Christian Council in order to decide members of the Election Committee among the nominees.^[8]

The election saw a nearly 20 percent point increase of turnout compared to the 2011 election. The pro-democracy camp took a record quarter of the seat in the elections, with the help of the landslide victories in the Second sector. Clean sweeps were seen in the Legal, Education, Higher Education, Health Services, Information Technology and Social Welfare subsectors, as well as victories in other subsectors. The pro-democrats under the banner of "Democrats 300+" won 325 seats in total if included the 27 ex officio Legislative Council members.^[1]

• 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election
• Politics of Hong Kong