China’s handpicked candidate to run Hong Kong won the former colony’s first contested election comfortably yesterday.

Donald Tsang, who was appointed chief executive by Beijing in 2005, predictably prevailed over his opponent, the Civic Party candidate Alan Leong, who built his campaign around China’s failure to allow Hong Kong full democracy.

Of the territory’s seven million citizens, only 795 members of an official election committee were eligible to vote, most of them pro-Beijing members of the business and professional leadership. Mr Tsang won 649 votes to Mr Leong’s 123.

Focus now shifts to whether Hong Kong can accelerate its democratisation and introduce universal suffrage by the next election in 2012. When Britain and China signed their treaty on the handover of Hong Kong Beijing agreed to allow the former colony to maintain its own system of government for 50 years. It also promised to move towards universal suffrage, but said three years ago that it would not happen in time for this year’s vote.

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