Beijing-loyalist to lead Hong-Kong

HONG KONG - Reuters

An election committee of about 1,200 Hong Kong notables picked Beijing-loyalist Leung Chun-ying as the city’s next leader yesterday, after a fraught campaign which will intensify pressure on China to keeps its promise to allow Hong Kong a direct leadership election in 2017.

Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, is a freewheeling capitalist hub which enjoys a high degree of autonomy and freedom, but Beijing’s Communist Party leaders have resisted public pressure for full democracy. The city’s seven million people have no say in who becomes their chief executive, a selection process which was marked by uncommonly high levels of public discontent at perceived interference by China. Outside the voting venue, up to 2,000 protesters yelled slogans and waved banners to show their anger at being denied a voice. “Leung Chun-ying resign, Leung Chun-ying resign,” they yelled.