Hong Kong's Chief Executive election is just three months away, but the only declared candidate so far is a man almost certain to lose.
Backed by the Democratic Party and several pro-democracy groups for the March poll, Civic Party legislator Alan Leong and his campaign team have hit the pavements, pressed flesh in grassroots districts, garnered signatures and courted the media.
It is a classic populist approach, but unusual in Hong Kong where the voters aren't the 7 million members of the public but an 800-person election committee comprised largely of individuals sympathetic to Beijing.
But Leong's campaign, launched just three weeks ago, seeks to make the most of a losing predicament: exposing the flaws of the electoral system and rekindling public interest in politics.
"The response has been quite encouraging, I've certainly detected an upsurge in awareness," said the Cambridge-educated barrister, citing recent public opinion polls.
Leong is also trying to make the election a contested one. His name will not be guaranteed on the ballot unless he can secure 100 nominations from the election committee - a task no pro-democracy candidate has managed for the territory's three elections since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.
Hong Kong's post-handover mini-constitution - the Basic Law - guarantees the territory a high degree of autonomy, particularly in economic matters.
But since the handover, critics have lambasted Beijing for interfering in Hong Kong's constitutional and political affairs. In April 2004, for instance, China's parliament explicitly ruled out the possibility of direct elections for the foreseeable future.
Beijing's influence has also been blamed for the recent erosion of the territory's civil, press and judicial freedoms. Incumbent Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang, who enjoys Beijing's backing, is odds-on favourite to win in March, even though he hasn't yet stated his intention to run.
Left with an "invisible" opponent, Leong and his supporters say they face a Kafkaesque world of red-tape, arcane rules, powerful spheres of influence and a faceless electorate in the run-up to March 25.
"As it is, the system is very much distorted and therefore you can't really see the results of a fair election system," said Ronny Tong, a legislator and Leong's campaign strategist. "The government is adopting the attitude that the more confusing it is, the better."
The first step will involve voting the election committee into existence this Sunday.
There are 1,047 candidates in 28 business and community sectors all vying for the 800 seats on offer. They are picked by a quarter of a million franchised voters from a miscellany of sectors both mainstream, such as banking and accounting, and obscure, like the Trawler Fisherman Association, a Pig Raising Co-operative and an Archaeologists' society.
"Voters are virtually invisible, they're spread all over the place and it's very difficult to single them out," said Tong.
A 300-page tome on electoral "guidelines" spells out complicated procedures for voter registration, candidacy and nomination, which have infuriated and baffled some candidates.
"I can't tell you how many copies of how many forms I have filled out, but I know it's already between 35 and 40," said political scientist Michael DeGolyer, who is running for one of 20 seats on offer in the higher education sector. "Whole forests have been felled just for the forms. It's Byzantine, obscure. If they could figure out a better way of discouraging candidature and voting, I don't know what it would be."
Experts say the stacking of pro-Beijing factions in the election committee, extensive behind-the-scenes lobbying by the central government's United Front Work Department and a requirement that all nominations for candidates be made open, have ensured Beijing candidates get overwhelming backing.
"The very uniquely odd or weird thing about this (the election committee) is that the part that does not need much transparency is made more transparent," said Leong, referring to the open nomination system, which makes public which electors have picked which candidates.
"If you still want some luck with the future chief executive in the next five years you may not want to openly upset him by nominating someone else," said Leong.
Leong's team says they've got their eye on the longer term and know that, win or lose this time around, change will come.
"This is what I call the pressure-cooker effect," Tong said.
"And I can assure that if we don't get universal suffrage by 2012, the temperature will become even higher."
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