Chan Hoi-yan

Rebecca Chan Hoi-yan (Chinese: 陳凱欣; born 19 November 1977) is a former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. A former journalist, Chan was the political assistant to Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man from 2012 to 2017. As a health ambassador, she stood in the 2018 November Kowloon West by-election and was elected, defeating pro-democrat candidate Lee Cheuk-yan. Chan is also a musician and vocalist.

Chan Hoi-yan
陳凱欣
Member of the Legislative Council
In office 26 November 2018 – 18 September 2020
Preceded by	Lau Siu-lai
Constituency	Kowloon West
Political Assistant to Secretary for Food and Health
In office 1 December 2012 – 1 July 2017
Secretary	Ko Wing-man
Preceded by	Paul Chan
Succeeded by	Kelvin Cheng
Personal details
Born	19 November 1977 Hong Kong
Spouse(s)	Yau Man-wah
Children	Jason Yau, Ivana Yau
Residence	College Road, Kowloon Tong
Alma mater	Hong Kong Baptist University (BSS)
Occupation	Journalist, medical professional and politician

Early career

Chan graduated from the Department of Journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University and went on to obtain a Master of Social Sciences Degree in Media Management, also from Baptist University. She received the university's Distinguished Alumni Communicator Award in 2008.[1]

She joined TVB as a news reporter in 1998 and became a senior reporter and anchor. In 2005 she moved to Now TV as a news editor (news and business information) and assisted in setting up the now business news channel and the news channel. She was also an executive producer of the medical programme Medicine Online.[1]

From December 2012 until the end of his tenure on 1 July 2017, she was political assistant to Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man.[1][2] She became CEO of social enterprise Sounds Great Services after she left the government.[3]

2018 Legislative Council by-election

She became candidate in the 2018 November Kowloon West by-election after Ko declined to run and endorsed Chan in his place.[4] Relatively unknown to the public before, she benefitted from the popularity of her former boss and the resources of the pro-Beijing camp, although she denied being a pro-Beijing candidate until in the late stage of the campaign.[5] As a result, she received 106,457 votes, 13,410 more than veteran pro-democrat candidate Lee Cheuk-yan of the Labour Party, being the second candidate to beat a pro-democrat in a geographical constituency direct election after Vincent Cheng of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) in the March by-election in the same constituency.

In the run-up to the election, one of her campaign leaflets was found to contain material plagiarised from work by Kenny Lai Kwong Wai, a Democratic Party Kowloon City District Councillor, urging a review of tourism laws. She apologised for the inclusion, with her office claiming it was a production error. Other pro-Beijing district councillors also used the plagiarised material, including Chan's DAB colleague Luk King-kwong and Lam Pok of Kowloon West New Dynamic.[6][7]

References

1. "Political Assistant appointed". Hong Kong government. November 30, 2012.
2. "Post-office employment for former politically appointed officials". Hong Kong government. September 4, 2017.
3. "Tam back with his old boss". The Standard. September 5, 2017.
4. Siu, Sai-wo (16 August 2018). "Journos still eye politics". Hong Kong Standard.
5. "Voter fatigue threatens to dampen turnout once again for West Kowloon by-election". South China Morning Post. 26 November 2018.
6. Pro-Beijing candidate apologises after by-election pamphlet plagiarised text from democrats, HKFP. 1 November 2018
7. 陳凱欣選舉傳單內容被指抄襲　團隊：製作錯誤即時停派, hkcnews.com, 31 Oct 2018