[JURIST] Veteran civil servant Donald Tsang [Wikipedia profile] was declared the new leader of Hong Kong [HK government press release] Thursday after his nomination was supported by roughly 85 percent of the election committee, a 796-member group largely loyal to Beijing. A vote was originally planned for July 10, but the amount of support for Tsang made it unnecessary [VOA report]; two other candidates for the post of Chief Executive pulled out when they could not get enough support [Channel NewsAsia report] to qualify. Tsang's campaign began in the midst of a constitutional dispute [JURIST report] over the length of the next Chief Executive's term, with China eventually ruling that the successor to former leader Tung Chee-hwa would only serve the remaining two years [JURIST report] of his alloted term, rather than a new five-year term, an alternative which some legal experts in Hong Kong itself had favored. Tung abruptly resigned [JURIST report] in March. Xinhua has more.