he understood the people's concerns because he himself was a member of the middle class. He supported this claim by saying middle-class people are those who drink coffee and enjoy French films. He was ridiculed by the public for the remarks, given that he earned a basic monthly salary of HK$302,205 and lived in a luxury government residence. On 7 December 2013, Tsang was hit in the head by an egg thrown by a League of Social Democrats (LSD) protester, Derek Chan Tak-cheung, at a government forum. Tsang joked about the incident, saying that a doctor had advised him not to eat too many eggs. "Luckily I'm not wearing a good suit today. I appear to have foreseen the incident." To distance himself from Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who took a hardline stance against localism in Hong Kong, Tsang expressed his affection for local culture, especially by showing his support for the Hong Kong national football team against China during the World Cup football qualifiers. He also wrote in his blog that localism could become a "strong and constructive force" that binds society together. His popularity rating had been over 60 out of 100 in 2015 and 2016, according to tracking polls by the University of Hong Kong public opinion programme, being the most popular principal official in the government. Tsang resigned as Financial Secretary on 12 December following months of speculation that he would run in the 2017 Chief Executive election during which he led opinion polls against incumbent Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. His resignation was approved by Beijing's central authorities on 16 January 2017, the same day his rival Carrie Lam resigned from her post as Chief Secretary for Administration. The unusual month-long gap between his resignation and Beijing's approval caused critics to speculate that Beijing was reluctant to allow him to join the race. 2017 Chief Executive bid Tsang officially declared his candidacy on 19 January with a slogan of "Trust, Unity, Hope", after more than a month-long pending of his resignation by the central government which put his campaign in limbo. There were reports that central government officials had given "red light" to John Tsang running in the election and had allegedly asked John Tsang not to run for more than ten times, including rumours of him being offered the deputy governor post at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in return for not joining the race.