Legislators-elect Rita Fan and Albert Ho are standing for another election -- seeking to become president of the Legislative Council (LegCo).

The post involves keeping the house in order and ruling on members' motion proposals.

Nominations for the LegCo presidency closed Tuesday. A total of two nominations were received -- one from David Li, a banker from the Finance constituency, nominating Fan and another from Andrew Cheng, a "democrat", proposing Ho.

Both will appear at a forum to answer questions from legislators-elect on October 4.

Despite the nomination, Fan maintained it had always been her position that, on the one hand, she was not keen to seek re-election to the LegCo president post and yet on the other hand, she would not let supporters down should they choose her.

Fan said she did not know how much support she would get when the election took place next Wednesday.

It is, however, believed that Fan secured the support of at least 29 legislators-elect.

"I am delighted with Ho participating in the election. This is better than getting elected uncontested," Fan said.

Fan had been the president of LegCo since reunification. On several occasions in her last few months as the president in the last LegCo term, she rejected as unconstitutional "pro-democracy" camp's motion proposals aimed at harassing the National People's Congress Standing Committee over the issue of constitutional reform.

Fan said that when rejecting the motion proposals, she was acting by the book.

Ho was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

On September 12, Fan won the LegCo election in Hong Kong Island constituency and Ho secured his seat in the New Territories West.

(China Daily HK Edition September 29, 2004)