In April 1990, Ho and other pro-democracy activists co-founded the
United Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK), the first major pro-democracy party in the city, of which he became the founding vice-chairman. The party transformed into today's
Democratic Party in 1994 when he became a member of the party's first executive committee. In 1992, he ran for the
by-election in
New Territories West as his first attempt to the
Legislative Council after incumbent Democrat
Ng Ming-yum died of cancer. He was defeated by conservative rural leader
Tang Siu-tong by only four percent of the votes. He ran again in New Territories West in
1995 Legislative Council election, receiving 54 percent of the popular vote. He stepped down from the colonial legislature on 30 June 1997 on the eve of the
handover of Hong Kong after the Beijing government dismantled the "through train" agreement of allowing the 1995 elected legislature to transition beyond 1997. The Democratic Party boycotted the
Provisional Legislative Council controlled by Beijing and refused to take part in it. In November 1997, Ho was nominated by the Democratic Party to run for a seat in the
National People's Congress, but excluded from competition when he failed to obtain the minimum number of nominations from the 400-strong Beijing-appointed election conference. in a McDonald's restaurant in
Central, Hong Kong, after he had attended a protest against the government's plan to adopt a
Goods and Services Tax. He suffered injuries to his head, arm and face, including a broken nose.
Democratic Party Chairman Between 2004 and 2006 Ho was the vice-chairman of the
Democratic Party. In December 2006, he was elected as party chairman in the
leadership election, defeating
Chan King-ming of the reformist faction. During his tenure, the party absorbed
Emily Lau's
The Frontier in 2008. In June 2010, he led the Democratic Party delegation to the
Liaison Office to negotiate the
electoral reform package with the representatives of the Beijing government. The Beijing government eventually accepted the Democratic Party's modified proposal to allow five new directly elected
District Council (Second) seats. The compromise sparked extreme discontent among the radical democrats and created a major unrest among the pan-democracy camp. He was challenged by radical democrat legislator
Albert Chan in his
Lok Tsui constituency in the following
2011 District Council election and barely retained his seat. In the
2012 Legislative Council election, Ho ran in the newly created District Council (Second) constituency and was elected with 228,840 votes. However, his party continued being attacked by the radical democrats and received the worst result in history, retaining only six seats. Ho resigned as party chairman right after the election results came out and was replaced by Emily Lau as acting chairwoman.
2012 Chief Executive bid Albert Ho announced on 4 October 2011 that he would stand in the
2012 Chief Executive election, which is elected in a small-circle election dominated by pro-Beijing members. Having won the pan-democratic primary against
Frederick Fung of the
ADLP on 8 January 2012, Ho ran against the two pro-Beijing candidates, ex-convenor of the
Executive Council Leung Chun-ying and former
Chief Secretary Henry Tang. Out of the 1,132 EC votes, Ho came third with only 76; Leung Chun-ying was elected with 689 votes.
Snowden incident In 2013, Ho grabbed international headlines after it was revealed that he had assisted
Edward Snowden during the latter's stay in Hong Kong.
2014 Hong Kong protests In October 2014, during
pro-democracy protests that began on 26 September, Ho said he was prepared to take a bullet if demonstrations turned violent. He did not support violence in the cause of democracy, but was willing to make a "sacrifice" on behalf of young people "because the future belongs to them." ==Post-legislator development==