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Twenty years since Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese control with an agreed aim to work towards universal suffrage in the city, a mere 0.03 per cent of registered voters will cast a ballot to decide the next Chief Executive.
- Beijing officials have reportedly been lobbying members of the electoral college to back Ms Lam
- Expert says Ms Lam is "very tough", not known for being flexible
- Students who took part in Occupy protests appear to have switched off from this year's contest
Sunday's three-way race for the city's top job is almost certain to see Beijing-backed Hong Kong official Carrie Lam win the ballot of just 1,194 voters — in a city that registered almost 3.8 million voters for legislative council polls last year.
While the chief executive vote includes some elected legislative council members, the vast majority represent business and special interest groups with a firm loyalty to China's one-party state.
Local media reports suggest Beijing officials have been actively lobbying members of the electoral college to back 59-year-old Ms Lam, even though China's Government vetted and approved the two other candidates in the race.
Neither local government official John Tsang nor retired judge Woo Kwok-hing are expected to sway enough members of the voting committee to challenge Ms Lam, despite Mr Tsang proving far more popular in public opinion polls.
"The mere fact Carrie Lam is seen as Beijing's candidate has aroused negative feelings," said Willy Lam, a politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
"She is a very tough person — kind of a Margaret Thatcher type of personality.
"She is not known for being flexible or being amenable to changing her views for public opinion."
If as expected she is chosen by the election committee, Ms Lam will face the same challenges her one-term predecessor CY Leung failed to overcome — keeping both the Chinese Government and the people of Hong Kong satisfied.
The past few years have seen deepening polarisation in the city of 7 million, with hundreds of thousands of mainly young activists blocking roads during a two-month Occupy protest in 2014.
That aimed to convince Beijing to allow a universal suffrage vote without the vetting of candidates for the chief executive poll.
The Chinese Government rejected that, and has subsequently interfered in the local legislative council by moving to have two elected pro-Hong Kong independence legislators banned from serving.
Many of the students who took part in those protests appear to have switched off from this year's contest, with no large-scale protests in the lead-up.
But the most high profile activist, Joshua Wong, has recently made visits to the US and UK in the hope of drumming up support for a long-term campaign.
"We are facing the largest authoritarian regime in the world," he told USA Today ahead of the vote.
"So the fight for democracy is not a short-term thing."
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, elections, hong-kong