Kwun Tong district councilor Hinson Hung Chun-hin risked losing his seat as an electoral petition found him to be unduly elected in February. Hung was the first councilor to be disqualified after the 2019 district council election.

Hung's application for leave to appeal was approved on February 24 and he was allowed to stay on as a district councilor during his appeal, to be heard on June 8.

The 23-year-old district councilor aims to raise HK$1 million through crowdfunding for legal fees. His party has already chipped in with HK$500,000 after the high court ordered him to pay the legal costs in the electoral petition.

Democratic Party Lo Kin-hei, said many party members are facing lawsuits, leading to hefty legal fees. They include Helena Wong Pik-wan, Lam Cheuk-ting and Andrew Wan Siu-kin, three defendants in the pro-democracy primary election case.

"We are facing an almost eight-digit deficit and can only do as much as we can," he said, calling upon the public to support the crowdfunding.

Hung said he graduated from university less than two years ago and only has five-digit savings in his bank account.

He said that the financial burden was huge but money was not his prime concern: "The worst scenario will be bankruptcy. If that happens, I still have a lot of time ahead of me.

"If I give up my seat because of money, that will be very unfair and regretful," he said.

Hung said he wanted to appeal because he did not want the pro-establishment camp to think that it was easy to overthrow an electoral endorsement by the people.

In the 2019 election, Hung was elected after getting 4,203 votes, beating then-district councilor Cheng Keung-fung from the Kowloon Federation of Associations by fewer than 400 votes in the polls.

Cheng later lodged an election petition, arguing that the democrat had made a false statement in election leaflets by accusing Cheng of being a "fake independent" candidate and concealing his affiliation with the pro-establishment camp. The high court ruled in his favor.