The Court of Final Appeal (TUI) yesterday confirmed the results of Sunday’s chief executive election when Sam Hou Fai was elected with nearly all the votes cast as the sixth-term chief executive of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR), according to a statement by the court yesterday.
The statement noted that the election results will be published in the Official Gazette (BO) on Monday next week.
Sam, the sole candidate for Sunday’s election garnered 394 of the 398 votes cast by the 400-member Chief Executive Election Committee, or 98.99 percent of the ballots cast, with two electors absent. There were four blank and no invalid votes.
Outgoing Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng met with Sam, now Macau’s chief executive-elect, on Monday where Ho pledged that the current government team will fully support Sam in forming his own team.
Yesterday’s statement noted that as no one had filed an appeal against Sunday’s election results before the statutory deadline, the Court of Final Appeal yesterday confirmed the results, in compliance with Clause 2 of Article 95 of the Chief Executive Election Law.
After the publication of the election results in the Official Gazette (BO) on Monday next week, the local government will then submit a report on the election results to the Central People’s Government requesting its appointment of Sam as the MSAR’s sixth-term chief executive.
Afterwards, Sam is scheduled to travel to Beijing to receive a State Council decree from Premier Li Qiang appointing him as the MSAR’s next chief executive.
After his appointment by the State Council and until his swearing-in ceremony on December 20, Sam will be Macau’s chief executive-designate.
Since the establishment of the MSAR on December 20, 1999, Sam had been the president of the Court of Final Appeal until late August when he resigned as the MSAR’s top judge so that he could run for chief executive.
Including Sam, the Court of Final Appeal had three judges until Sam’s resignation, with the other two being Song Man Lei and José Maria Dias Azedo. Since Sam’s resignation, Song, with a higher level of seniority than Dias Azedo in the Court of Final Appeal, has been the court’s acting president.
Song also heads the government-appointed Chief Executive Electoral Affairs Commission (CAECE), an entity tasked with organising and overseeing the chief executive election.
Yesterday’s statement noted that as Song heads the Chief Executive Electoral Affairs Commission, she was required to refrain from performing her function to confirm Sunday’s election results, in her capacity as the Court of Final Appeal’s acting president.
In addition, the statement said, Dias Azedo is on a working visit outside Macau, because of which the confirmation of Sunday’s election results was performed by Choi Mou Pan, the judge with the highest level of seniority at the Court of Second Instance (TSI), who in this particular case exercised the function normally carried out by the Court of Final Appeal’s president or, if need be, another judge of Macau’s highest court.
Consequently, Choi’s decision was issued at the behest of the Court of Final Appeal, even though he is not a member of that court.
Currently, following Sam’s resignation so that he could run in the chief executive election, the Court of Final Appeal only comprises two judges – Song and Dias Azedo.
According to the Judicial Organisation Framework Law, the Court of Final Appeal shall comprise three judges. According to Article 88 of the Macau Basic Law, the president of the Court of Final Appeal shall be a Chinese citizen who is a permanent resident of the MSAR.
Chief Executive-elect Sam Hou Fai addresses Sunday’s press conference following his election as Macau’s sixth-term and fourth chief executive at the Forum Macao Complex. – Photo: GCS
