The former President of the Court of Final Appeal, Sam Hou Fai, has been nominated by 96% of Macau’s Election Committee members and is expected to be the only candidate in the upcoming Chief Executive election.
Sam announced his candidacy last month following the news that incumbent Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng will not stand for a second term.
Under Macau law, to stand for the Chief Executive election a candidate needs to obtain 66 nomination forms from the 400 members of the Election Committee. Sam announced Tuesday that he had received 383 nomination forms.
With each Election Committee member only permitted to submit one nomination form, this means the 383 nomination forms Sam received accounts for 95.7% of members. In other words, even if there are other runners in the election, there will not be enough nomination forms available, so it is expected that Sam will be the only candidate in the election.
Compared to the number of nominations obtained by Macau’s Chief Executive candidates in the past, the percentage of nomination forms obtained by Sam is the highest ever.
Ho Iat Seng obtained 378 nomination forms when he ran in the 2019 election, accounting for 94.7% of the total, while Fernando Chui Sai On obtained 331 nomination forms when he ran in the 2014 election, accounting for 83%.
The first Chief Executive, Edmund Ho Hau-wah, received support from only 64% of the Election Committee members when he first ran in the election.
When submitting his nomination form on Tuesday morning, Sam pointed out that he had contacted Election Committee members of different terms over the past 12 days and obtained the 383 nomination forms on Monday night.
“In the past, I did not expect to get much support from the Election Committee members, but now I am very satisfied,” he said.
