HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp will try to claw back lost seats as polls opened early Sunday in controversial by-elections that have exposed the heart of the city’s political divide.

The vote comes as China signals a harder line against any challenges to its sovereignty, with high-profile young candidate Agnes Chow barred from standing because her party promotes self-determination for the semi-autonomous city.

Beijing has become increasingly incensed at the emergence of activists advocating independence and sees calls for self-determination as part of a splittist push.

The by-election was triggered after Beijing forced the disqualification of six rebel lawmakers who had swept to victory in citywide elections in 2016.

Some were former protest leaders, others openly advocated independence. All were ousted from their posts for inserting protests into their oaths of office.

Four of the six vacant seats will be contested Sunday.

“The election is not just about selecting me as a candidate, it is also about voting for justice,” said Au Nok-hin, who stepped in to contest the Hong Kong Island seat after Agnes Chow was disallowed.

The seat was originally held by Nathan Law, one of the leaders of 2014’s mass pro-democracy Umbrella Movement rallies, who was among the six thrown out of office.

But pro-establishment politician Judy Chan, standing against Au, cast the opposition as provoking “violence and resistance.”

“The by-election is a chance for the silent majority, who are tired of a politicized Hong Kong, who detest those who humiliate the country, to come out and tell those politicians that Hong Kong has no room for them,” Ms. Chan told AFP.

The six lawmakers were retrospectively barred from office by Hong Kong’s high court after Beijing issued a special “interpretation” of the city’s mini-constitution stipulating legislators had to take their oath “solemnly and sincerely” or face being banned.

Pro-independence lawmakers had inserted expletives and waved “Hong Kong is not China” banners during their swearing in. Others added phrases supporting the democracy movement.

The pro-democracy camp has come up against increasing pressure since the failure of the Umbrella Movement to win political reform, with some leading activists jailed on protest-related charges.

Political analyst Dixon Sing says losing any one of the four by-election seats would be a further blow.

“It would only add to the disappointment and the loss of faith,” he told AFP.

Only half the legislature is elected, with the rest selected by traditionally pro-establishment interest groups.

Of 70 seats, the democracy camp currently holds 24, only just clinging on to the one-third needed to veto important bills.

It has also been curbed by new rules against filibustering, long a favoured tactic.

Nevertheless, veteran democrats are urging residents to go out and vote.

“It is not just a by-election,” said pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo.

“It’s a fight between good and evil.” — AFP

ROME — Since taking charge of the Roman Catholic Church in March 2013, Pope Francis has transformed perceptions of an institution beset by scandals and plagued by self-doubt.

The sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Church may have cast a shadow over his papacy as it enters its fifth year on Tuesday.

However, the 81-year-old Argentinian has helped to facilitate a historic rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, played a role in the peace process between government forces and rebels in Colombia and thrown the power of the Church into the fight against climate change.

Born in Buenos Aires on Dec. 17, 1936, the erstwhile Jorge Bergoglio is the first pope from Latin America and the first from the southern hemisphere.

He has championed the cause of the marginalized and the developing world, says he wants a “poor Church for the poor” and a Catholic community which preaches mercy and understanding in the application of its teaching.

He was arguably the first global leader to grasp the scale of the migration crisis now engulfing Europe, railing against the “globalization of indifference” on a visit to Lampedusa in July 2013, three months before two sinking disasters off the Italian island catapulted the issue onto newspaper front pages.

In April 2016, he flew to another island on the frontline of the migrant crisis, Lesbos, and returned to Rome with three families of Syrian Muslims in a gesture that underscored another of the dominant themes of the Francis papacy: interfaith reconciliation.

In May 2014, at the Israeli wall surrounding the Palestinian territories, he prayed, in silence, for its disappearance.

Such agenda-setting gestures have made the world beyond the confines of the Church sit up and take notice.

In his first year of office, Francis graced the covers of no fewer than three major US magazines: Time made him their 2013 person of the year, Esquire declared him their best-dressed man and Rolling Stone just declared: “He rocks.”

With his penchant for having selfies taken with fans, kissing babies and making surprise phone calls to lonely widows, the smiling, bespectacled pontiff has an easy, popular touch.

That has helped him command a level of popularity his dour academic predecessor Benedict XVI could only dream of.

It has been a valuable asset as he has taken on vested interests in the Vatican hierarchy and the broader Church to push internal reforms, even if critics say some of those have now stalled.

Vatican insiders describe a leader with the business executive’s capacity to make quick decisions.

In his five years in charge, Francis has shaken up and streamlined the Vatican bureaucracy and brought 21^st-century auditing to the murky structures of the Holy See’s banking system.

He has sought to tackle the enormously damaging scandal over sex abuse by priests by meeting victims, vowing to hold those responsible accountable and enacting new internal Church procedures to discipline bishops implicated in cover-ups.

He also set up a Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to help deal with the scandal.

But his critics say the Church remains too reluctant to hand pedophile priests over to civil authorities.

NO PALACES
Modesty and humility are key components of the @Pontifex package.

An iron — not gold — cross and discrete, unostentatious clothes contrast with the fur-trimmed satin cloaks favored by his predecessors.

He lives in a modest flat in St. Martha’s, a Vatican boarding house, having eschewed the option of a lavish Papal palace. Sumptuous summer facilities at Castel Gandolfo also go unused.

Holidays are not for this pope in a hurry, who has regularly hinted at a belief he will only survive a few years in the job.

When he opened the first round of a review of Church teaching on the family in October 2014, he told participants to follow his lead and speak honestly, “even if you think it will offend your pope.”

His reform agenda on issues such as allowing divorced and remarried believers to take communion has run into opposition from conservatives, with whom Francis agrees on many other issues.

He denounces abortion as fervently as any cleric on the planet. To the dismay of many anti-poverty and women’s rights activists, his Church has no inclination to overturn its ban on artificial contraception.

And to the dismay of many liberals, there is no space for gay marriage in his vision of how society should organize itself.

Yet the world outside may see a bigger picture, one of a Church adapting to the modern world: an organization that once universally condemned homosexuality as a kind of sickness now being led by a grandfatherly figure who hugs his gay friends and sums up his attitude to homosexuality with the phrase: “Who am I to judge?” — AFP