In a departure from her usual straight-talking style, Hong Kong’s “Iron Lady” Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee kept the public hanging for over a week before finally announcing on Saturday that she will opt out of the December general election, ending a 17-year tenure in the Legislative Council.

Ip, 75, also a founder of the New People’s Party, said she believed it was time to pass the baton, having completed her “historic mission”, adding that she would focus on nurturing new talent in the future.

Openly ambitious, Ip has over the years shown that she is not someone who gives up easily, making her more colourful and confrontational than many other politicians.

But life appeared to deal Ip more than her fair share of challenges.

She went from being a popular government minister to the city’s most reviled figures, left Hong Kong for the United States after a row over the controversial anti-subversion legislation drove half a million people to the streets, and then returned to lose, and later win, elections to become a lawmaker.

The daughter of a tradesman father and actress mother, Ip attended St Stephen’s Girls’ College after which she enrolled at the University of Hong Kong, studying English literature and graduating with first-class honours.

“I wanted to be an academic,” Ip said in a 2016 interview, “but academic jobs in that area were very hard to come by.”