Twenty-two arrested over alleged vote-rigging in HK
Twenty-two people have been arrested for alleged vote-rigging in Hong Kong’s district council elections, anti-corruption investigators announced Sunday.
The 22 are accused of registering and voting in the November 6 elections in Hong Kong using false residential addresses.
Six of the 22 have been charged with corrupt conduct under the city’s election ordinance and are due to appear in court Monday, Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption said.
All six are accused of giving the same address in a building in the city’s Mongkok district when they registered to vote.
The arrests all took place in Hong Kong’s inner-city Yau Tsim Mong constituency where the election was won by just two votes with the winning candidate getting 1,045 votes to his nearest rival’s 1,043.
The arrests follow investigations by election officials into 130 complaints of corruption about the November 6 elections against allegedly ineligible voters in the city of 7.1 million.
A record 1.2 million people voted in the elections which saw pro-Beijing parties strongly outperform pro-democracy parties as more than 400 district councilors were elected.
Hong Kong’s district council advise the government on community issues such as traffic but have little power beyond local matters.
Category: Hong Kong
