Hong Kong elections: Beijing accuses Occupy protest leader Benny Tai of breaking national security law through primary poll

Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office also says organiser Benny Tai ‘illegally manipulated’ the city’s election system, acted as political agent for foreign forces

Some 610,000 Hongkongers voted last weekend to determine who gets the opposition ticket for the Legislative Council elections in September

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Hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers took part in weekend voting for the opposition primary, the organisers of which have been lambasted by Beijing. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 8:25pm, 14 Jul 2020Updated: 12:05am, 15 Jul 2020

Beijing has issued its strongest condemnation yet of a controversial election primary held by Hong Kong’s opposition parties, singling out organiser and long-time activist Benny Tai Yiu-ting, whom it accused of “illegally manipulating” the city’s polling system, challenging the new national security law and acting as a political agent for foreign forces.

In a scathing statement on Tuesday, the cabinet-level Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) lashed out at those behind last weekend’s unofficial polls, when 610,000 Hongkongers voted to determine who should get the opposition ticket for the Legislative Council elections in September.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and Beijing’s liaison office in the city on Monday had already accused the opposition of trying to take control of the legislature to vote down the budget and paralyse the government, in what they described as a coordinated ploy to subvert state power.

“[We] strongly condemn the so-called ‘primary election’ organised by the opposition groups. The act is an unlawful manipulation of Hong Kong elections and a blatant challenge against the Basic Law and the national security law,” the HKMAO statement read, referring to the sweeping new legislation Beijing tailor-made for the city to outlaw acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security.

Turning its ire on Tai, a legal academic and co-leader of the Occupy movement in 2014, the office suggested the primary he helped organise flowed from the anti-government protests sparked by the now-withdrawn extradition bill last June, describing him as “one of the culprits” behind the social unrest.

“Benny Tai was a key organiser of the ‘unlawful’ Occupy Central movement and an advocate of ‘Hong Kong independence’ and the scorched-earth mentality,” the statement read, accusing him of serving as “a political agent of foreign forces”.