Crowdfunded Advert Urges CY Leung For President

A full front page advertisement in Monday's Apple Daily newspaper is calling on former Chief Executive CY Leung to “head north” as soon as possible to take over from Xi Jinping as president.

The ad, paid for by crowdfunding organised by League of Social Democrats chairman Avery Ng, comes in response to recent Facebook posts by Leung where he accused a number of companies of having no morals by paying for adverts in the pro-democracy paper.

Leung had come under fire from his critics over the comments, and the Hong Kong Journalists' Association said he was harming the city's freedom of expression by putting pressure on advertisers.

The crowdfunded ad has a photoshopped image of CY Leung wearing a hat bearing the Communist Party logo against a bright red background. The headline, in simplified Chinese, says “Support CY Leung to become president. Head north as soon as possible to replace Xi”.

In the lower half of the ad, a letter to “Comrade Leung”, expresses concern about his well-being, and questions why he feels so “lonely and bored” that he feels the need to monitor advertisements in newspaper on a daily basis.

It also says Hong Kong is way too small a place for Leung to shine and he would do better by becoming president, with the public happy to have a whip-round to pay for his one-way ticket to the capital.

Ng said 988 people had donated money for the advertisement, contributing HK$166,000 between them.

In response, Leung thanked Ng for the ad, saying it has helped put the spotlight on the role of advertisers in the territory.

He said companies paying for ads have a duty to explain to the public whether they agree with a newspaper's stance on important moral issues, adding that it is common in Western countries for people to boycott firms for their advertising decisions.