The Election

With the failure of democratic movements such as the 2014 protests, the election of Chief Executive in 2017 is a hybrid universal suffrage: one has to obtain 600 votes from the 1200-member Nominating Committee to stand as an official Chief Execution candidate. Wai Man-hin (Poon Chan-leung), non-partisan candidate, is killed in a car accident on the day he wins the Chief Executive election. In the coming years, Wai's widow, Yip Ching (Angelica Lee), becomes an active activist for labour rights. As the 2022 Chief Executive election approaches, Luk Wai-tou (Savio Tsang), DNRA-backed candidate, is embroiled in an extramarital scandal. While DNRA continues to back Luk under the pressure of Wang, a mainland official, Sung Man-san (Liu Kai-chi), President of the Legislative Council and Chairman of DNRA, is ambitious and tries to replace Luk. Meanwhile, Yip is persuaded by Cheung Gwai-lung (Gregory Wong) into following her late husband's footsteps and participating in the election. With the increase in the maximum election expenses, prospective candidates have to rely more on sponsors of local tycoons, who are mostly supportive of the government and pro-government DNRA. After appointing Cheung as her election officer, Yip eventually receives sponsor and nominating votes, but refuses to co-operate with HKMG, Hong Kong's leading media group. Sung fabricates evidence of Luk's affairs to weaken Luk's popularity, but Wang still supports a now-reluctant Luk to stand for the election. Luk discovers that Sung is behind all his scandals but is killed and then replaced by Sung in despair. Cheung rejects invitation from Sung to return to DNRA and is framed for raping the wife (Luvin Ho) of a government official. Although the charge against Cheung is dismissed at last, Yip loses several nominating votes and has to turn to the Heung Yee Kuk for help. However, unbeknownst to Yip, the meeting between her and a rural strongman is used by DNRA and HKMG as evidence of her linkage to triads. Soon later, Yip joins the Democratic and Liberal Party (DLP), of which her late father is a co-founder, amidst its fierce intraparty conflict between the central committee and the Young Turks, who support her to challenge chairman Ho Chung-bak (Kwok Fung) in the party's primary election.