A new team has formed to compete for Islands District Council seats at the coming November 24 election.

The environmentally-friendly grouping, Islands Connection (離島連線) will field a candidate in each of the four outlying islands.

The prospective Lantau candidate, Fung Siu-yin, was raised in Tung Chung and is a Lantau community organiser.

Their platform endorses the five demands of the anti-extradition campaign, opposes the $600 billion Lantau Tomorrow Vision project, calls for better ferry services and road safety and for reduction in waste and ocean trash.

They describe their approach as “promoting democracy in our island daily life, working on community issues and proposing environmentally-friendly solutions.”

The campaign proper won’t start until after candidate registration takes place next month, but they face an uphill battle in the conservative Islands council.

Of its 18 members, ten are elected and eight are appointed ex officio as representatives of their rural committees. Only two members are from the pro-democrat camp.

Lantau’s current member, Randy Yu, backed by all of the island’s rural committees, was elected for the first time in 2015 with 50.4% of the vote.

However, Eddie Chu (whose NT West seat includes Lantau),  believes there is support for change:

“In my experience during the election, many villagers, including indigenous villagers, are supportive of my election platform – conserve the environment and stop white elephant infrastructure projects – but they don’t have the confidence to come out. They want to come out as a group.”