Buzzoca

Former president of the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) Sam Hou Fai was chosen this Sunday as the new leader of Macau’s government, in a vote in which he was the only candidate.

Sam Hou Fai, who needed the support of at least half of the 400 members of the electoral commission, received 394 votes, with four blank votes recorded. Two members did not vote.

 

The single candidate had already secured the written support of 386 members of Macau’s Chief Executive Electoral Commission (CECE). Sam Hou Fai will later be formally appointed by the Chinese Central Government as the next leader of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) for a five-year term.

In 2019, the current Chief Executive, Ho Iat Seng, at the time also a single candidate, was chosen with the support of 392 of the 400 CECE members, seven blank votes and one null vote.

Ho Iat Seng announced in August that he was not running for a new term “due to health problems”.

Ho Iat Seng’s term ends on December 19 and the new leader is due to take office on December 20, the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Macau SAR, following the transfer of Macau’s administration from Portugal to China.

Sam Hou Fai will be the first Chief Executive to speak Portuguese.

Born in 1962 in Zhongshan, in the neighboring Chinese province of Guangdong, Sam completed his law degree at Peking University, and later attended the Law and Portuguese Language and Culture courses at the University of Coimbra.

CECE members come from the four sectors of society, as defined by the Basic Law (Macau’s “mini-constitution”): industrial, commercial and financial; cultural, educational, professional; labor, social services and religion; and political.

The 400 members, including at least 18 Portuguese and Macanese, were chosen on August 11 by 576 legal persons (associations and organizations), i.e. more than 6,200 voters in a territory with 687,000 inhabitants.

The Macanese are a Euro-Asian community, made up mainly of Lusodescendants, with roots in the territory.

Sam Hou Fai resigned as president of the TUI on August 26 and announced his candidacy two days later, which was “definitively admitted” on September 20.

This was after the Macao SAR State Security Defense Commission also verified and approved Sam Hou Fai’s qualifications in “upholding the ‘Basic Law’” of the region and “loyalty to the People’s Republic of China” and Macau.

This requirement is included in the electoral law passed in 2023 and which, according to the government, aims to “take another step towards implementing the principle of ‘Macau governed by patriots’”.