The result of Macau’s fifth chief executive (CE) election, which had already been verified by the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) last month, was published in the Official Gazette (BO) on Monday.
Macau’s top court verified the result and confirmed Ho Iat Seng as the Chief Executive-elect, the gazette announced.
Since no judicial appeal against the election process was filed within the statutory period, the Court of the Final Appeal verified the election result and the name of the elected candidate in accordance with provisions of the Chief Executive Election Law.
According to the general audit results of the election, all the 400 members of the Chief Executive Election Committee cast their secret ballots at the Macau East Asian Games Domes in Cotai on August 25.
Ho, 62, won the election with 392 votes, or 98 percent of the votes. There were also seven blank ballots and an invalid one.
Ho Iat Seng will be Macau’s third chief executive succeeding Fernando Chui Sai On, whose second and constitutionally final consecutive five-year term ends at midnight on December 19. President Xi Jinping is widely expected to preside over Ho’s swearing-in ceremony on December 20.
Chui succeeded Edmund Ho Hau Wah, who became the first chief executive of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) on December 20, 1999, when four centuries of Portuguese rule came to an end. Macau’s return to the motherland on that day was a mere change in administration. Portugal unilaterally relinquished its sovereignty claims over Macau shortly after its anti-colonial Carnation Revolution in Lisbon in April 1974, after which the Portuguese Constitution defined Macau as a (Chinese) territory under (temporary) Portuguese administration. According to the Macau Post Daily, China did not recognise foreign countries’ sovereignty claims over Chinese soil but in the case of Hong Kong and Macau refrained from exercising its sovereignty until 1997 and 1999 respectively.
As Edmund Ho and Chui served two consecutive five-year terms each, Ho Iat Seng will be Macau’s fifth-term chief executive.
