Alvin Yeung


Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu is a barrister and politician in Hong Kong. He is the current Leader of the Civic Party and member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, representing New Territories East after winning the 2016 by-election.

Background

Yeung was born in Yuen Long, Hong Kong in 1981 as the only child to a restaurant owner and a jewellery dealer. He and his parents emigrated to Canada in the early 1990s after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Yeung graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a degree in political science and obtained a master of laws in constitutional and administrative laws from the Peking University around 2003.

Political career

Inspired by the major 2003 July 1 march, Yeung joined a group called "7.1 People Pile". He campaigned for Alan Leong Kah-kit, a barrister-turned-politician, in the 2004 Legislative Council election. From the following year, he studied for a master of arts in legal studies at the University of Bristol and became a certified barrister in 2008.
He joined the Civic Party in 2011 and ran in the 2011 District Council election in Tai Po Market but was defeated. He was later elected to the Election Committee through the legal subsector in the 2011 Hong Kong Election Committee Subsector election. In 2012 Legislative Council election, he partnered with Ronny Tong to run in the New Territories East and successfully got Tong re-elected. He gave up his Canadian citizenship for the candidacy in the election.
Yeung is currently chairman of the New Territories East branch of the party and member of the Appeal Panel, and also co-host of the political talk-show "Teacup in a Storm" on D100 radio station.
He was recommended by Ronny Tong when Tong resigned from the Legislative Council in June 2015 to take up the seat in the February by-election. He retained the seat for the Civic Party by defeating Beijing-loyalist DAB candidate Holden Chow Ho-ding and localist Hong Kong Indigenous candidate Edward Leung Tin-kei, receiving 160,880 votes in the New Territories East constituency.
In the September general election, Yeung sought re-election in New Territories East. From his leading position in opinion polls, he cooperated with Labour Party's Fernando Cheung and later on with other pan-democrat candidates to split the votes evenly to maximise the block's chances of winning seven out of the nine seats. He was re-elected with 52,416 votes, along with six other anti-establishment candidates. Following the election, he succeeded Alan Leong as party leader, in an acting capacity from 1 October and formally, through a party election, in November.

Disqualification

Five weeks ahead of the 2020 Hong Kong Legislative Council Election, on 30 July, as Yeung prepared to defend his seat, the government stated that he was among a dozen pro-democracy candidates whose nominations were 'invalid', under an opaque process in which, nominally, civil servants - returning officers - assess whether, for instance, a candidate had objected to the enactment of the national security law, or was sincere in statements made disavowing separatism.