2021 Hong Kong legislative election


The 2021 Hong Kong Legislative Council election is scheduled on 5 September 2021 for the 7th Legislative Council of Hong Kong. A total of 70 members, which 35 from geographical constituencies and 35 from functional constituencies, will be returned.
Originally scheduled on 6 September 2020, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on 31 July 2020 the invocation of the Emergency Regulations Ordinance which gave her to the emergency powers to postpone the election. She cited the recent resurgence of the COVID-19 cases and denied any political calculation behind it. The delay was seen as a blow to the pro-democrats who aimed to achieve "35+" majority by riding to 2019 District Council landslide on a wave of massive protests against the government and concerns about the sweeping new national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong. It was also seen as the latest in a quick series of aggressive moves by the Beijing authorities to thwart their momentum and sideline the pro-democracy movement.

Postponement

Originally scheduled on 6 September 2020, the recent resurgence of the COVID-19 cases in July sparked the speculation of the possible delay of the election. Tam Yiu-chung, the sole representative from Hong Kong on National People's Congress Standing Committee, suggested that the government should not rule out postponing the upcoming election, denying any criticism that the pro-Beijing camp was afraid of losing the election.
On 31 July the last day of the nomination period, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced the invocation of the Emergency Regulations Ordinance which gave her to the emergency powers to postpone the election. She said the elections would involve "a large-scale gathering and an immense infection risk", adding that many registered voters in mainland China and oversea would be unable to take part in the elections while border quarantine measures were in place and denied any political calculation behind it.
The pro-democrats who hoped to ride on a wave of deep-seated dissatisfaction with the government accused Lam of using the pandemic as a pretext to stop people from voting and warned that doing so would "trigger a constitutional crisis in the city." Joshua Wong who was recently disqualified from running in the election wrote on Twitter that the pandemic was being used as "as an excuse to postpone the election" and was "the largest election fraud in #HK's history." Pro-democracy legislator Eddie Chu said that Chinese Communist Party was ordering "a strategic retreat." They "want to avoid a potential devastating defeat" in the election, he wrote on Twitter.
The United States, United Kingdom and Germany slammed the government decision. Germany announced it was suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong over the Hong Kong government's decision "to disqualify a dozen opposition candidates for the election and to postpone the elections" showing a further encroachment on the rights of Hong Kong citizens."

Retiring incumbents

Opinion polling

By camps