"Sorry, I'm nominating myself"

All six candidates who submitted nomination forms in Kowloon City yesterday are on the nominating committee themselves

A message from one of the Kowloon City nominating committee sums up the murkiness of the District Council election swamp.

“As I am running for the seat, it may not be appropriate for me to nominate another candidate.”

Indeed. It would be rather foolish to nominate someone to stand against you in the seat for which you are supposed to be helping select a candidate.

In fact, six Kowloon City candidates submitted their candidacy nominations to the government on the first day of the nomination period yesterday: ALL SIX are on the Kowloon City nomination committees.

I’m not really sure on the ethics of having a nominating committee that can also stand in the election: shouldn’t we at least bring in alternates, given the loss of nominators?

And those six represent a third of the “easier to find” nominators, as they had public information on record from their 2019 rout or existing DC post. But aside from the gentleman above who’s been in contact, the other five never responded to emails, calls, WhatsApp messages or the request from the District Office that they contact me.

Their nomination forms will be available for inspection and would be worth a look – was there some quid pro quo between the candidates, particularly those of the same party (DAB)? In any case, it could be argued they are not taking their roles on the Three Committees very seriously, if they are not responding to members of the public trying to contact them: but then there’s no accountability for a place on those committees, so what can we expect?

“How hard can it be to go to a school gate and demand to see the principal?” (paraphrasing Alice Mak)

Yesterday I went to track down nominator Sam Sze. She’s the co-head of wealthy private school YCIS in Kowloon Tong and she’s also on the Area Committee for Kowloon City, meaning she has a hefty say who’s standing in the election race. She has also ignored about a dozen messages, calls, emails and even internal referrals from her more helpful colleagues who know me personally, as well as a request direct from the Kowloon City District Office to contact me. And bear in mind I’m not exactly a cold-caller, having worked on road safety campaigns around her school for a couple of years now. I need her support and with nomination slots disappearing fast (40% of the Kowloon City nominations are now officially tied up) I need to make a personal pitch asap.

Now, Home Affairs and Youth Secretary Alice Mak this weekend said contacting such nominators just required a bit of work. For a school principal, for example, we know where they work: “You just need to go to the school gate. How hard can it be?” she said.

I don’t know if she actually believes her own nonsense or if she just leads a very charmed life.

Because today I actually went to the YCIS gate. And asked to speak with Ms Sze.

And whaddya know? Schools don’t let random people just wander in without an appointment! And school principals won’t just come down to see what’s up if you ask to see them! And security guards will actually threaten to call the police if you don’t leave at once!

No surprise that security at YCIS don’t take kindly to my attempt to reach secret committee nominator and YCIS co-head Sam Sze

Secretary Alice Mak does not live in the real world, of course, but it had to be tried if only to empirically call BS on her nonsense. I still don’t know if YCIS co-head Sam Sze will ever return my calls or if she’s already given her nomination away. Certainly she’s turned her back on the community outside her school gate, given the daily carnage from YCIS parents in Bentley SUVs and G-Wagens triple parking on every Kowloon Tong pedestrian crossing¹…

This all isn’t quite how I imagined campaigning: I thought I’d at least be able to have conversations with the nomination committee, however brief, and discuss the district issues, make a case. How naive!

The trouble is, finding them is now urgent. I’ve been working on the lists for three weeks with not much to show for it, a hefty chunk of my contacts are now standing in the race themselves and there’s barely 13 days left to submit all nomination forms.

It’s not all bad news: one of the nominators who contacted me used to own a Taco Truck. I put the idea of a Dosa Truck to him and he thought that was an excellent concept. Maybe something good will come of all this after all 😋😋😋.

PS thanks to Hong Kong Free Press, Big Lychee and Tripperhead HQ for the coverage!

1. I do wonder about the school’s slogan “The Future for Humanity”. If this is the future of humanity, we’re all so fucked. The YCIS kindergarten, primary and secondary school are poor neighbours with little interest in solving the problems their elite customers bring: that the head is on the Kowloon City Area Committee is somehow no surprise.