The election of the third chief executive (CE) of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will be held on July 26 this year, according to the latest edition of the SAR's Official Gazette published on Monday.

The CE election date was confirmed in an executive order promulgated by the incumbent CE Ho Hau Wah in the Official Gazette.

Under the SAR's relevant election law, the candidates should be nominated 30 days ahead of the election date of July 26, and the nomination period should last at least 12 days, which means an eligible candidate should be nominated on June 14 at the latest.

The law also prescribes that eligible candidates should acquire nominations from at least 50 members of the 300-member CE Election Committee, and current officials in various governmental departments and legal organs will not be eligible for candidacy unless they resign their posts before the nomination process begins.

As it is stated in the SAR's Chief Executive Election Law, Macao's new CE will be elected within the 300-member CE Election Committee, of which some 254 members of the committee were elected by representatives of the respective socio-economic sectors, while46 others were picked from local eminent political, business and religious figures.

Meanwhile, the limit of campaign expenditure for each CE candidate was also made public in the Official Gazette, which amounts to just over 8.94 million patacas (1.13 million U.S. dollars), or 0.02 percent of the SAR government's 2009 budget before revision.

The term of the new CE will begin in December this year when the current CE's second and constitutionally final five-year term comes to an end.

(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2009)