The incumbent Chief Executive Donald Tsang, who had been elected to serve the remainder of the five-year term left unserved due to the midterm resignation of his predecessor Tung Chee-hwa, and had served his own full five year term, was ineligible to run for a re-election to a full third term as stated in the Basic Law. Leung Chun-ying, who was seen as the underdog, ran a successful campaign against Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang who was seen as the favorite candidate by Beijing officials and business tycoons. The pan-democrats also successfully fielded their own candidate, Democratic Party chairman, and Legislative Councilor Albert Ho, who won the primary against another pan-democrat legislator Frederick Fung, former chairman of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) on 8 January 2012.
