CHINA: HONG KONG'S democratic parties overcame post-Olympic patriotism and Beijing's growing popularity in the territory to retain veto power in the legislature after an election in which they had been tipped to collapse, writes Clifford Coonanin Beijing.
Sunday's election gives Hong Kong's various pro-democracy parties 23 out of 60 seats in the legislative council, which means they still have influence over future political reforms.
This is crucial for Hong Kong's democracy movement because the forthcoming four-year legislative session is expected to yield new proposals as part of a gradual move toward universal suffrage.
Warmer ties with mainland China and post-Olympic patriotism had been expected to boost pro-Beijing parties supporting chief executive Donald Tsang.
The democratic parties - plagued by infighting and low on funding - were expected to fall below 21 seats, which would have lost them their veto power in the next legislative session.
After a hard-fought election, in which the pan-Democrats had shown they were in touch with the electorate's fears of recession and inflation in the former colony, the democratic parties won 19 of the 30 directly-elected geographical constituencies and four seats in the so-called functional constituencies, mostly commercial groups that are traditionally dominated by pro-Beijing forces.
The democrats also had to fight the election with two of their most prominent political stars - veteran Martin Lee, a co-founder of the Democratic Party, and the popular former deputy head of government, Anson Chan. Both decided not to seek re-election.
Among the winners was radical activist "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, a stalwart of the Hong Kong political scene well-known for staging high-profile anti-government actions. Mr Leung had been expected to lose his seat, but won by a comfortable margin.
Hong Kong was promised direct elections for both its legislature and chief executive when Britain returned the territory to China in 1997, but no specific timetable was set.
Beijing still picks the city's chief executive, and has said it will not allow direct elections for the chief executive in 2012, but has hinted that there could be direct votes for Mr Tsang's successor from 2017.
Beijing has ruled out direct elections for the council before 2020.
The biggest loser in the election was the pro-business Liberal Party, which was left in crisis after its top two leaders lost their seats.