The 2024 election of the Chief Executive (CE) Election Committee members will take place this Sunday, and the Chief Executive Electoral Affairs Commission (CAECE) reminded all the election candidates for the 400-member committee in a statement yesterday that no electioneering will be allowed starting this Saturday.
“No campaign activities will be allowed from August 10 [this Saturday] onward, otherwise it will constitute an offence” a statement by the Government Information Bureau (GCS) yesterday quoted an official reminder by the CAECE as saying, adding that the campaign period for the election of members of the sixth-term Chief Executive Election Committee, which commenced on July 27, will end at 00:00 on Saturday.
The statement underlined that anyone who, on the eve of the election, i.e., Saturday, carries out any election campaign communication shall be liable to a fine of 2,000 patacas to 10,000 patacas, while a person who, on the day of the election, contravenes the provisions of the Chief Executive Election Act by any kind of electioneering is liable to imprisonment of up to one year or a fine.
Any campaigning inside a polling station and within a 100-metre radius of a polling station on the day of the election, as well as within the vicinity of polling stations and buildings hosting polling stations – including materials either on the venue fences or exterior walls are also strictly prohibited, the statement stressed.
According to the commission, the GCS statement noted, all candidates and relevant individuals from the election committee’s seven sectors and subsectors have so far been carrying out their campaigning during the official campaign period in accordance with the law, and the situation has been “favourable”, with some of them making use of the venues provided by the commission for their electioneering.
Candidates’ registration period for the election committee ended on July 2, with a total of 348 persons standing as candidates. Among them, 120 persons applied for their candidature in the industrial, commercial and financial sectors, 26 in the cultural sector, 31 in the education sector, 43 in the professional sector and 17 in the sports sector, as well as 61 in the labour sector and 50 in the social services sector. The number of candidates from the education sector and the labour sector exceeded the quota by two each. A total of 344 seats are up for grab.
The remaining 56 seats comprise Macau’s 12 deputies to the National People’s Congress (NPC) as well as 14 representatives of the Macau members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), 22 of 33 members of the Macau Legislative Assembly (AL), six from the religious sector (Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist and Taoist), two from the city’s municipal organs.
The voting will be held at seven polling stations set up at Macau Forum and the Macao Polytechnic University’s (MPU) Multi-Sport Pavilion in Zape as well as the Luso-Chinese Vocational and Technical School in Areia Preta district from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.
This image provided by the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) yesterday reads: “Guide to Formalities of the Election of the Members of the Chief Executive Election Committee”.
