HK leader John Lee spends HK$2.37m on advertising

Hong Kong’s new leader John Lee Ka Chiu has spent HK$9.1 million for his election campaign, and around K$2.37 million on advertisements and HK$1.95 million on social media management, according to the official document from Registration and Electoral Office. He raised nearly HK$11.26 million for his election campaign, according to the declarations of donations and expenses submitted by Lee to the Registration and Electoral Office.

Among the HK$9.1 million, Lee spent on the month-long campaign, of which HK$2.7 million was spent on election rallies and HK$754,000 on Facebook advertisements. However, Lee did not allocate any funds for YouTube, as Google had terminated his channel citing the sanctions. Upon the announcement of his candidacy, Google's video platform YouTube also took a surprise stance cancelling his campaign channel, citing compliance with the US sanctions against the former chief secretary. A Google spokesperson had then said in a statement, “Google complies with applicable US sanctions laws and enforces related policies under its Terms of Service. After review and consistent with these policies, we terminated the Johnlee2022 YouTube channel”. The company did not tell the detail out the reasons for terminating the channel. 

In terms of social media management, Lee spent HK$1.95 million, with a payment of HK$190,000 being made to his campaign team comprising of seven people.

Other expenditure includes office rent and transportation (HK$2.77 million), gatherings (HK$2.7 million), and advertisements (HK$2.37 million). Among the fee paid for office rent and transportation, of which HK$710,000 was used for office security, while the actual rent being around HK$520,000. As for the HK$2.7 million used for gatherings, around HK$1.8 million was used to hold campaign rallies, while HK$660,000 has been used for hosting press conferences.

The Registration and Electoral Office made Lee’s declaration of donations and expenses public for scrutiny on Monday, nearly two months after he was elected on 8 May 2022.

Lee held a number of events during his campaign. He announced his candidacy on April 9, spending more than HK$370,000; the platform briefing and press conference cost around HK$600,000. As for the campaign conference held at the Wanchai Convention and Exhibition on 6 May 2022, it involved HK$2.1 million. According to the document, Lee also spent over HK$21,000 for photoshoots of personal portraits. As for the election website, it cost about HK$1.4 million, involving 114 advertisement declarations.

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