JAKARTA - Hong Kong's chief executive election, scheduled to be held in March, will be postponed to May as the Asian financial hub struggles to contain a surge in COVID-19 infections, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Friday.
The candidacy period will be pushed back to April 3-16 and elections postponed to May 8, he told reporters, which would still allow time for a new leader to be sworn in on July 1, after his term ends.
Carrie Lam said she had received Beijing's "approval" for the delay, exercising powers under emergency regulations.
"I remain optimistic that we will be able to overcome this public health crisis," he told reporters, adding he did not rule out delaying the election again if the health crisis worsened.
Meanwhile, quarantine facilities in Hong Kong have reached peak capacity with hospital beds more than 95 percent full, as cases are spiraling, with some patients forced to undergo treatment outside hospital buildings in the cold and sometimes rainy weather.
Restrictions on social and public gatherings, imposed after the pandemic first hit, helped the former British colony quell sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
As for the National Security Act, enacted by Beijing in June 2020, which crushed dissent, it effectively ended the unrest.
Since Hong Kong's return from British to Chinese rule in 1997, there have been four chief executives, all of whom have struggled to balance the democratic aspirations of some residents with the visions of China's Communist leaders.
To note, all of the city's leaders have been backed by Beijing and elected by a small 'election committee' made up of Beijing loyalists which expanded from 1,200 to 1,500 members in a general election reshuffle announced last year.
The mini-parliamentary Legislative Council elections, originally scheduled for September 2020, have been pushed back to December 2021.
Unlike previous Hong Kong leadership elections, including the previous one in 2017, no 'heavyweight' candidate has signaled their intention to run and there is no clear favourite.
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