The election for the President of the Provisional Legislative Council took place on 25 January 1997 for members of the Provisional Legislative Council of Hong Kong to among themselves elect the President for the duration of the council. Rita Fan from the

pro-Beijing camp The pro-Beijing camp, pro-establishment camp or pro-China camp is a political alignment in Hong Kong which generally supports the policies of the Government of the People's Republic of China, Beijing central government and the Chinese Commun ...

defeated President of the colonial Legislative Council Andrew Wong and was elected.

Election

The election of the President through secret ballot was held during the first-ever meeting of the Provisional Legislative Council (PLC). The PLC was forced to meet in Shenzhen to remain outside the reach of Hong Kong law, as democracy groups called it illegal and threatened to take the PLC to court if its members try to gather in Hong Kong. The meeting was closed to the public, and journalists watched the proceedings on closed-circuit television. Rita Fan, a key player in committees overseeing the

handover In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transf ...

with solid connections with women's groups and Beijing, beat the current Legislative Council president, Andrew Wong.

Results

Reaction

Chris Patten Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes (; born 12 May 1944), is a British politician who was the Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992, and the 28th and last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997. He was made a lif ...

Governor of Hong Kong The governor of Hong Kong was the representative of the United Kingdom, British The Crown, Crown in British Hong Kong, Hong Kong from 1843 to 1997. In this capacity, the governor was president of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, Executiv ...

, blasted the gathering as "a bad day for Hong Kong", and criticised the PLC for having "no legitimacy, no credibility and no authority in Hong Kong." Earlier calling the shadow legislature "a rather exotic debating society that meets on occasional Saturday mornings", Patten said he hopes "it will not embarrass Hong Kong too much". CNN described Hong Kong's democratic future "may have suffered a blow" following this election.

Pro-democracy camp The pro-democracy camp, also known as the pan-democracy camp, is a political alignment in Hong Kong that supports increased democracy, namely the universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council as given by the Basic La ...

in Hong Kong also disapproved the election, with Emily Lau from the Frontier believing Fan might politicise the presidency and "change the role of the president from speaker to a super leader of the body" for her strident stance. Zhou Nan, China's de facto ambassador to Hong Kong, hailed Fan's election and suggested it would be a bad idea for the PLC to hold off until June before starting work on law-making. Zhou also claimed "now Hong Kong has a chance to create for itself a truly representative form of government."

References

{{Authority control 1997 elections in China 1997 in Hong Kong President of the Hong Kong Legislative Council elections