From controversial security minister to Hong Kong Island’s ‘queen of votes’: Regina Ip locks down Legco position

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, once one of Hong Kong’s most unpopular ministers, was crowned the “queen of votes” as she won 60,760 votes to retain her Hong Kong Island seat – nearly 10,000 more than first runner-up Nathan Law Kwun-chung.

The question now is whether Ip, armed with a sizeable ­mandate, will run in next year’s chief executive election.

Last night, Ip’s car was seen at Beijing’s liaison office in Sai Wan, but it wasn’t clear if she was sitting inside the vehicle because of blacked out passenger windows as the windows were blacked out.

Earlier in the day, she sidestepped media questions about her plans, saying: “I am tired. My priority is to take some rest.” ­Before being elected to the Legislative Council in 2008, Ip was best known as Hong Kong’s security minister who spearheaded the government’s push for national security legislation in 2003.

After 500,000 protesters took to the streets to oppose the legislative proposal on July 1 that year, fearing their rights would be ­compromised, the government shelved the relevant bill and Ip stepped down. She went on to study political science in the United States then returned to Hong Kong citing new “democratic” experience and credentials to launch a political career by establishing her Savantas Institute think tank in 2006.

In 2007, the death of lawmaker Ma Lik, late chairman of the pro-establishment Democratic ­Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, triggered a by-election and Ip stepped into the fray.

She was endorsed by the DAB as the pro-Beijing camp’s candidate to take on former chief ­secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang, of the pan-democratic bloc.