Nomination period for Macau leadership race ends with former top judge Sam Hou-fai as sole candidate
Hong Kong Free Press
The nomination period for Macau’s upcoming leadership race has ended, with former top judge Sam Hou-fai emerging as the only candidate.
The application window for the small-circle election closed on Thursday. Even before that, Sam was poised to be the only contender as he had received 383 nominations from the 400-strong election committee, which is also tasked with selecting the city’s next leader.
That left insufficient members to back a second candidate, as each candidate required at least 66 nominations to run.
Sam, the former president of Macau’s Court of Final Appeal, said on Tuesday when he submitted his nominations that he was “very satisfied” with the support he had received.
Macau’s next chief executive will be selected by the same committee that nominated Sam as sole candidate on October 13. Following an electoral overhaul last December that was similar to one undergone in Hong Kong, candidates are vetted by a national security committee and must be deemed “patriots” to run.
The current chief executive Ho Iat-seng, who has been leading Macau since December 2019, announced in August that he would not seek a second term. He ran as the sole candidate during the leadership race in 2019.
Sam would become the first Macau leader with a legal background, in contrast to his three predecessors who all hailed from the business sector. The 62-year-old was born in the mainland Chinese city of Zhongshan and studied law at Peking university in Beijing.
He was appointed the president of Macau’s top court in 1999, and held the position until last month when he announced his resignation.
As of June 2024, Macau has a population of 687,000, according to official figures.
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