Elections for the third term of theLegislative Assembly (LA) of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) started in Macao Sunday morning.

Under Macao's election rules, the method used for converting the number of votes into the directly elected seats in the LA works as follows:

The first candidate on each of the 18 direct electoral group (list) receives a number of points that is equal to votes recorded for his or her list.

The second candidate on each list receives a number of points equal to half the number of votes recorded for that list.

The third candidate on each list receives a number of points equal to a quarter of the number of votes recorded for that list, and so on.

The directly elected LA seats are then awarded to the candidates who, among all lists, have the highest numbers of points.

If two candidates from different lists have the same number of points, the seat will go to the list that has yet to win a seat.

If both lists have won one or more seats, the seat will go to the list that received the higher number of votes.

If both lists won the same number of votes, a ballot for the seat will be held.

The provisional results of the direct elections will be announced on early Monday morning.

The indirect elections will be conducted by community representatives. 10 candidates runs for 10 seats and the provisional results will also be announced on early Monday morning.

The Election Committee will then proposed the provisional results of direct and indirect elections to the Court for the approval.

The approved list will then be announced on the government gazette.

The LA in the third term will be composed of 29 members, with 12 members from the direct elections, 10 members from the indirectelections, and seven members being nominated by the chief executive.

This year, a total of 125 candidates from 18 social groups contested in the direct elections.

In the region with a population of nearly 470,000, 220,653 haveregistered for the direct election poll.

Source: Xinhua