 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
All 1,193 votes of the Election Committee 601 votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opinion polls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 25 March, 2012 to select the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE), the highest office in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), by a 1,193-member Election Committee (EC) to replace the incumbent Chief Executive. Won by the former non-official convener of the Executive Council of Hong Kong Leung Chun-ying, the election was the most competitive as it was the first election with more than one pro-Beijing candidate since the 1996 election.
The incumbent Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, had been elected to serve the remainder of the five-year term which was left unserved, due to the midterm resignation of his predecessor, Tung Chee-hwa. He had served his own full five year term and was ineligible to run for a re-election to a full third term as stated in the Basic Law. Leung Chun-ying ran a successful campaign against Chief Secretary for Administration, Henry Tang, who was seen as the favorite candidate by Beijing officials and business tycoons. The pan-democrats also successfully fielded their own candidate, The Democratic Party chairman, and Legislative Councilor Albert Ho, who won the primary against another pan-democrat legislator Frederick Fung, former chairman of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) on 8 January 2012.
The campaign was marked by scandals, dirty tactics, and smears from both Tang's and Leung's sides, notably Henry Tang illegal basement controversy.[1][2] In the wake of the scandals which damaged Tang's popularity, the election was ultimately won by Leung Chun-ying, who received 689 electoral votes in the Election Committee with the help of the central government's Liaison Office.