China-backed bureaucrat Carrie lam was on Sunday elected as Hong Kong’s first woman Chief Executive who quickly pledged to heal the “divisions” in the gleaming territory which has seen unprecedented demands for democracy and protests at the Communist giant’s growing influence.
lam, 59, won 777 votes from the 1,194-member Election Committee, made up of mostly Beijing-loyalists. She is the first woman to be elected to the post.
The former chief secretary defeated ex-finance chief John Tsang Chun-wah and retired judge Woo Kwok-hing, who took 365 and 21 votes respectively.
In Hong Kong, chief executive is not chosen by public vote, but by a 1,200-strong committee dominated by pro- Beijing electors. Hong Kong merged with Chinese mainland in 1997 under the ‘one country two systems’ principle worked out between Britain and China. The principle grants certain degree of autonomy from Beijing to Hong
Kong which is officially called
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.