Andrew Leung becomes president of Hong Kong Legco after dispute over British nationality
Functional constituency legislator presents chamber with copy of declaration showing he renounced UK passport
Pro-establishment legislator Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen became the new Legislative Council president on Wednesday evening, after pushing the vote ahead by presenting a copy of a declaration confirming he had given up his British nationality.
After multiple adjournments, moving the meeting to another room and swapping the chair of the election, Leung won the race by 38 votes to democratic camp nominee James To Kun-sun’s zero. There were also three blank votes.
Just before the vote, most of the pan-democrats tore up their ballot papers and stormed out of the meeting room.
Localists Yau Wai-ching, Sixtus “Baggio” Leung Chung-hang and architecture representative Edward Yiu Chung-yim were barred from entering the meeting room as their oaths had been rejected in the morning.
Leung, of the Business and Professionals Alliance, had been under pressure from pan-democratic and localist legislators to produce the paper, as they said they could not otherwise be sure Leung had renounced his British nationality.
