Hong Kong’s largest pro-establishment party has won over 40 per cent of seats elected by the public and a small circle of voters on the city’s local councils in a race plagued by technical glitches and record-low turnout.
The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) secured 41 out of the 88 seats in the democratically-elected geographic race. The party also landed 68 out of the 176 seats in the small-circle committee elections, which were voted for by members of three government-appointed committees.
In total, the DAB obtained 109 seats out of the 264 – or 41 per cent – available in Sunday’s polls, making them the biggest winner of the restricted race. They had sent 121 candidates to run.
The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), another major pro-establishment party, took the second-largest number of seats. The group won 18 seats via public election and nine through the small-circle committee race.
Smaller, non-traditional parties such as Roundtable, Path of Democracy and the Bauhinia Party, which sent members to compete only in the geographic race, did not win any seats. Neither did the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions, a major trade union in the city.
Under the new electoral system, just 20 per cent of the 400-odd seats were voted on by the public. The rest were voted on by the government-appointed committees and selected by Chief Executive John Lee.
The remaining District Council seats will be appointed, and will include 179 people picked by the chief executive, as well as 27 representatives of rural committees.
In a Monday morning statement, Lee said the government would announce the list of appointed members “as soon as possible.”
Hong Kong held its first District Council elections on Sunday since the government overhauled the electoral system, introducing changes that effectively made it impossible for the opposition to run. Pro-democracy hopefuls failed to obtain the required nominations from government-appointed committees and were thus shut out of the race.
The shake-up followed a landslide victory by the city’s pan-democratic camp in 2019. Officials have accused the district councillors who won seats for that term of advocating Hong Kong independence and endangering national security without citing evidence.
Turnout ‘reasonable’
Sunday’s patriots-only district election saw around 1.19 million registered electors cast their ballots for 88 seats in the geographic constituencies, marking a 27.5 per cent voter turnout, the lowest in any election held in Hong Kong since its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
In 2019, 71.2 per cent of eligible voters turned out for an election that was held amid months-long protests and unrest sparked by a controversial amendment to the city’s extradition bill that grew into widespread calls for democracy.
Justice David Lok, chairman of the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC), said on Sunday that it was not appropriate to directly compare this year’s turnout rate with that of 2019. The composition, voter base and voting system was different, he said.
Speaking on an RTHK radio program on Monday morning, veteran pro-Beijing politician Tam Yiu-chung said the turnout was “reasonable.”
He said that Beijing would hold the opinion that the higher the turnout, the better. But he added that the reality was that people felt less motivated to vote now that stability had been “restored.”
“I think this [voter turnout] figure is reasonable, and shows that everyone supports the new electoral system,” Tam said, speaking in Cantonese. “Almost 1.2 million people voted. This is not a small figure.”
While government officials have downplayed the significance of voter turnout, saying it was not indicative of how the public felt about the electoral overhaul, the city has also staged high-profile campaigns in an attempt to promote the elections.
A day before the patriots-only election, the government held activities – including a carnival and concerts – at the harbourfronts in Wan Chai and West Kowloon to “enhance public awareness and the atmosphere of the election,” according to a government statement.
Taskforce to investigate technical mishaps
Meanwhile, the city’s leader Lee said a taskforce would be set up to look into technical glitches that forced authorities to extend polling hours by one and a half hours until midnight.
At around 8.30 pm, the EAC said a computer system failure meant polling stations had to switch to paper ballots. There was no evidence of a cyberattack, the commission said.
Addressing reporters in Cantonese after midnight, Lee said he was “highly concerned” by the technical malfunction and that a taskforce would be set up to “fully investigate” the matter.
“I know it was tough on the campaign teams and the candidates because they had to continue with their election work since the polling times were extended… I thank them for their hard work,” Lee said.
Lok, the commission’s chairperson, apologised for the system breakdown on Monday. The commission is expected to submit an investigative report within three months, per the chief executive’s request.
“Besides feeling helpless, I don’t know what to say. We have to be responsible and follow up and investigate [what went wrong]. After the probe if someone needs to be held accountable, that’s fine with me,” he said in Cantonese.
‘Patriots’ at the polls
Plans to overhaul the District Council elections were unveiled in May 2023 to ensure only “patriots” were elected, following a pro-democracy landslide at the last polls in 2019.
The number of seats chosen democratically by the public were slashed from 452 to 88 – reducing the power of public votes to a fifth. The rest are to be chosen by the city’s leader and government-appointed committees.
Constituency boundaries were redrawn, the opposition were shut out, voting hours were slashed by an hour, and each local council is to be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.
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