Total Disregard For Hongkongers' Will: Joshua Wong

Hopefuls who have been barred from running in the upcoming Legco elections have expressed their surprise that a dozen of them were disqualified on the same day, saying it is now clear that Beijing will brook no opposition in Hong Kong and the move shows a "total disregard for the will of the Hongkongers".

In a Facebook post, former Demosisto leader Joshua Wong posted the letter he got from the election official disqualifying him. Wong stressed that he had received the support from more than 30,000 people in the primaries held by the opposition parties.

"Beijing shows a total disregard for the will of the Hongkongers, tramples upon the city's... autonomy and attempts to keep HK's legislature under its firm grip," he said in a Twitter post.

Wong was planning to run in Kowloon East. He was the only candidate barred due to political reasons from the district council elections held in November.

He described the government's move on Thursday as "the biggest-ever crackdown" on the pro-democracy movement. The authorities had disqualified "nearly all pro-democracy hopefuls, from young progressive groups to traditional moderate parties", Wong said.

Tsuen Wan district councillor, Lester Shum – who intended to run for a Legco superseat – said he was surprised by the number of people barred from the poll.

“The scale is totally insane,” said Shum, who was a key student leader during the 2014 Occupy Central protests.

“I think it’s beyond all of our expectations that all of the candidates who have been in opposition [to] the national security law have been disqualified from joining the election.”

“I think the message is very clear – that the Beijing government cannot allow any opposition voices in Hong Kong. I think this not only signals the end of so-called Legco elections, this definitely signals the end of One Country, Two Systems,” Shum said.

In a statement, former Governor Chris Patten described the disqualifications as an "outrageous political purge".

“It is obviously now illegal to believe in democracy, although this was what Beijing promised in and after the Sino-British Joint Declaration. This is the sort of behaviour that you would expect in a police state," he said.

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