Angela Leong On Kei (pictured), an executive director of Macau casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd, is standing for re-election as a directly-elected member of Macau’s Legislative Assembly. The election will be held on September 17.
Ms Leong – the fourth consort of Stanley Ho Hung Sun, the founder of SJM Holdings – has been a directly-elected Macau legislator since 2005. She is running for a fourth consecutive term.
Fourteen seats – of a total of 33 – are available for 2017’s direct election for the Legislative Assembly. In Macau, some seats in the legislative body are apportioned via direct election, and some via either indirect elections or appointment by the city’s chief executive.
According to a media invitation from “Nova União para Desenvolvimento de Macau” – the official name of Ms Leong’s electoral platform – her son Arnaldo Ho Yau Heng will be joining her electoral ticket: he is the third-placed candidate on the list, behind Macau entrepreneur Kuan Vai Lam. Since 2005, Ms Leong’s electoral platform has only been able to elect one legislator per term.
Mr Arnaldo Ho is currently assistant chief operating officer of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau SA, a company representative told GGRAsia. The firm is the Macau entity holding SJM Holdings’ Macau gaming licence.
Several incumbent directly-elected legislators in Macau have ties to the local gaming industry.
Zheng Anting, a local junket representative, first campaigned – and successfully – for a directly-elected seat in 2013. He was the second candidate on an electoral ticket headed by Mak Soi Kun, a businessman involved in real estate. The duo delivered earlier this month their application for legal status of their nomination committee to the Electoral Affairs Commission for the Legislative Assembly Election. The application has been approved; the group is expected to present their ticket in the coming days.
The Macau Legislative Assembly Election Law stipulates that only political associations and nomination committees have the right to nominate candidate lists for the process of direct election to the Legislative Assembly.
Directly-elected legislator Melinda Chan Mei Yi on Thursday confirmed she would be standing for re-election, again heading a ticket. She is the wife of David Chow Kam Fai, co-chairman and chief executive of casino services firm Macau Legend Development Ltd. Mr Chow is himself a former legislator.
The upcoming legislative election in Macau is also to have for the first time the participation of a local gaming activist group. Cloee Chao, director of the gaming worker group Professional for Gaming of New Macau, delivered last month the group’s application for legal status of their nomination committee to the Electoral Affairs Commission. The application was approved but the group has yet to announce who will be joining its electoral ticket.
Lei Kit Meng, a local junket investor, also confirmed to the media having delivered an application for legal status of a nomination committee for the upcoming direct election.
Veteran directly-elected legislator Chan Meng Kam has yet to publicly confirm whether he will be standing for re-election in the upcoming legislative election. Mr Chan is the president of Golden Dragon Group Co Ltd, which runs Casino Golden Dragon and Casino Taipa Square. Both venues make use – under what is known as a service contract – of the gaming licence of SJM Holdings.
(Updated at 7.40pm, June 29)
