Veronica Shiu defends her crown
By Heidi Hsia | From Cinema Online Exclusively for Yahoo Newsroom – Thu, Sep 4, 2014 4:47 PM MYT- Veronica Shiu defends her crown
4 Sep – The newly reigned Miss Hong Kong Veronica Shiu recently defended her title, after Netizens speculated that the result of the pageant had been rigged.
As reported on Hong Kong's On CC News, despite the combination of votes from the public and the pageant's judges, the result, which announced the 24-year-old as the winner shocked many including Eric Tsang himself.
Reportedly, in an online poll organised by TVB, contestant number 11 Sofiee Ng had earned the most votes, and became the popular choice to win the title. However, in the end, not only did she lose the crown to Veronica, but also failed to make it to the top three.
When asked to address the issue, Veronica, who appeared at the press conference that was held after the competition, stated, "The decision was made by a majority of voters. We should respect it."
She denied being upset with the controversy over her victory. "I am confident in myself and I have been chosen because I gave a good performance. I mean, all the contestants did their best, but some stood out more than the others."
On the other hand, when mentioned that even the hosts were surprised with the result, first runner-up Erin Wong said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, while third place winner Katherine Ho believed that the result reflect citizens' choices, as it was determined by one-vote-per-person system.
The new Miss Hong Kong Veronica Shiu is crowned last night. Photo: Nora Tam
It may not seem quite the place to make a political statement, but TVB's Miss Hong Kong Pageant last night gave the city a taste of how democracy could look in 2017.
A "one man, one vote" system allowed the public to pick the winner - but not before a panel of celebrity judges had served as a nominating committee to screen out seven of the 10 finalists.
More than 200,000 viewers cast their ballots via the contest's smartphone app to determine first, second and third places.
Veronica Shiu Pui-sie, a 24-year-old university student, was crowned Miss Hong Kong after winning more than 156,000 votes, far outnumbering the first runner-up, Erin Wong Cheuk-ki, 23, who received about 28,000 votes. Second runner-up was law degree graduate Katherine Ho Yim-kuen, 22.
It was the third year that the TVB pageant had used the public voting system but some viewers complained that this year the adjudicating committee had been given too much power; previously the public and judges had a 50-50 weighting of votes.
The first "universal suffrage" vote - as the broadcaster billed it in 2012 - turned into a fiasco when thousands of viewers were left unable to vote due to a computer-server breakdown. Eventually, the winner had to be chosen by the judges.
The company initially suspected that the crash had been caused by hackers who generated millions of votes to overload the system. But an investigation found no evidence of this, according to the broadcaster. There were no such hitches this year or the previous year.
"TVB is telling you to doi zyu sin (pocket what you get)," said a web user on one of the city's discussion forums, referring to the fact that the public were only allowed to choose between candidates picked by the judges appointed by the broadcaster.
The expression has been popularised recently by pro-establishment figures who try to convince Hongkongers to accept an imperfect reform package.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Has beauty pageant set the tone for 2017?
