Victory vow: Donald Tsang says the third-term government will represent the interests of all sectors of society.

Donald Tsang has won the third-term Chief Executive election, with 649 votes, or 84% of the total valid votes.

The first round of voting started at 9am and ended at 11am, with 789 Election Committee members casting their votes, a 99.1% turnout rate. There were 772 valid votes. Contender Alan Leong got 123 votes. As Mr Tsang got well over half of the votes, there was no need for a second round of voting.

Mr Tsang said he appreciated the public's support and electors' votes, which acknowledge his political platform, laying a firm foundation for community consensus. He said the election shows the strength of the 'One Country, Two Systems' formula and offers a firm basis for future constitutional development.

Healthy competition

Mr Tsang praised Mr Leong for his participation in the election, which provided a venue to present their respective ideas of governance to the public. He vowed that the third-term government will represent the interests of different sectors of society, and balance them in policy implementation. It will also strive to promote the city's economic development, ensuring it remains a prominent international financial centre.

"Officials will, more than ever, go deep into society to hear people's views, and work out policy in a bottom-up approach," Mr Tsang said.

"The Government will use novel ideas to resolve the divide between the rich and poor, and take a pragmatic stance to settle political differences in moving towards universal suffrage."

He added that he will start forming a list of principal officials once he is appointed by the Central Government.

Constitutional development

Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Stephen Lam said the Commission on Strategic Development looking at different models for implementing universal suffrage for the Legislative Council and for the Chief Executive.

"It is now high time for us to work together and get a set of solutions on how we can implement universal suffrage according to the Basic Law. We will issue a report by the middle of this year and we will conduct public consultation on how to implement universal suffrage both for LegCo and the chief executive."

Mr Lam said there will be several months of public discussion and people's views will be summarised and relayed to the Central Government.