Asia-Pacific

With opposition candidates blocked, voters shun Hong Kong’s local elections

Chinese government made huge effort to encourage participation

A woman leaves a polling station after casting her vote for the district council election in Hong Kong on Sunday. Photograph: Bertha Wang/EPA

Denis Staunton China Correspondent
Mon Dec 11 2023 - 16:28

Hong Kong has seen its lowest turnout in an election since returning to Chinese rule after opposition candidates were blocked from standing for district councils.

Fewer than 1.2 million people voted in Sunday’s district council elections, just 27.54 per cent of the 4.3 million registered voters, despite a huge official effort to encourage participation.

Hong Kong’s government laid on free public concerts with drone shows and firework displays to keep voters in the city for the weekend and paid nursing homes to drive residents to polling stations. But the turnout was lower even than in legislative council elections two years ago, when opposition politicians were also blocked from taking part.

Four years ago, pro-democracy parties won a landslide in district council elections that saw a record 71.23 per cent turnout. Many of those elected in 2019 later resigned their seats, some have left Hong Kong and others were arrested under a National Security Law (NSL) introduced in 2020.

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Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee described Sunday’s election as “the last piece in the puzzle” to implement the principle of “patriots” loyal to Beijing running the city. “From now on, the district councils would no longer be what they were in the past – which was a platform to destruct and reject the government’s administration, to promote Hong Kong independence and to endanger national security,” he said.

Only 88 of the 470 district council seats were directly elected, with the rest chosen by 2,500 members of government-appointed committees or appointed directly by the city’s chief executive.

To get on to the ballot, prospective candidates had to be vetted by an official panel and to win three nominations from three government-appointed local committees.

The pro-establishment Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) won 41 out of the 88 directly-elected seats and 68 out of the 176 seats elected by the committees. The Federation of Trade Unions won 18 directly-elected seats and nine from the committees’ votes and two other pro-establishment parties, the New People’s Party and the Business and Professionals Alliance, were in third and fourth place.

Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office congratulated the successful candidates and said the election demonstrated the superiority of the new electoral system. “District councils have restored their proper nature and functions, freeing the elections from politicisation and populism and focusing pragmatically on solving real issues of concern to the community,” it said.

“The candidates are all based in the community and focusing on people’s livelihood. They put forward platforms and launched policy debates around practical issues in regional governance such as transport, elderly care, child care, medical and health, public facilities and future community development, so that citizens could deeply feel the election is related to their interests and that this is a real and effective democracy”.

At least six people were arrested on Sunday in connection with allegations that they sought to encourage people to boycott the election or to spoil their vote. They included three members of the League of Social Democrats, one of a handful of pro-democracy groups that survive in Hong Kong.

Denis Staunton

Denis Staunton

Denis Staunton is China Correspondent of The Irish Times

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