Hong Kong’s first district elections after the implementation of the “patriots rule Hong Kong” principle saw a turnout of 27.5 per cent, the lowest since the transfer of sovereignty to China. Previously, the lowest turnout had been in 1999 (35.8 per cent).
The government’s official website reported that only 1.2 million of the 4.3 million registered voters went to the polls. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, John Lee, thanked people for participating in the elections and said that this was “the last piece of the puzzle to implement the principle of patriots governing Hong Kong”.
“From now on, the district councils will no longer be what they were in the past – a platform to destroy and reject the government’s administration, to promote Hong Kong’s independence and to jeopardize national security,” Lee said after casting his vote on Sunday.
The previous elections were held at the height of the huge and often violent anti-government protests in 2019, recording an all-time high of 71 per cent turnout, with a landslide victory for the opposition camp.
The authorities in the neighboring SAR overhauled the composition of the councils earlier this year. Under the new rules announced in May, the seats up for direct election were reduced from 462 to 88, with the remaining 382 seats made up of members of three government-appointed commissions, appointed members and ex-officio members.
No candidates from opposition groups were given the green light to run and more than 70 per cent of the directly elected candidates are members of the commissions.
Was participation enough?
Pedestrians walk past campaign posters for the upcoming district council elections in Hong Kong on December 8, 2023. (Photo by Peter PARKS / AFP)
Pro-Beijing heavyweights told the South China Morning Post that the turnout rate did not disappoint Beijing, as it was similar to that of the 2021 Legislative Council elections (30.2 per cent) – the first after the Beijing-led electoral reform and with the absence of the opposition camp.
Lau Siu-kai, a consultant for the Chinese Association for Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a semi-official Beijing think tank, told the Post that voter turnout is not an important indicator in determining the success of the vote. “Beijing was already expecting that preventing opposition figures from running in the elections could lead to a boycott by some supporters of that camp,” he commented. Even so, he is confident that if the district councils show good results, “voter turnout in future elections will improve”.
According to the Post, the 180,000 civil servants were strongly urged to vote, with at least three officials from different departments telling the newspaper that they had to inform their bosses about whether they had done so.
Ma Chi-sing, president of the Government Employees Association, refuted this scenario on Sunday, saying that there was no pressure and that they were not forced to tell their bosses anything.
For the first time, the government organized a series of activities to encourage people to vote. On the eve of the elections there were several concerts and events to encourage people to stay in the city to vote, offering funding to nursing homes to organize transport for residents and distributing thank you cards to voters.
The city’s second highest official, Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan Kwok-ki, said that the pre-election events were organized to “make residents happy” and make them understand the importance of voting, and not to increase voter turnout.
Regarding the costs of the events, he said that the authorities had not yet made the calculation, insisting that it was money well spent, since the elections were important for both residents and society.
The chairman of the Electoral Affairs Commission said that all the electoral arrangements managed to fully reflect the principles of transparency, honesty, and fairness.
Problems of legitimacy And of harmonious future
“Low participation has an impact on the legitimacy of councils,” John Burns, a public administration expert at the University of Hong Kong, told the Post. In his opinion, the government’s “unprecedented” mobilization campaign may have had different results: “It encouraged some to vote, but discouraged others,” adding that “this mobilized participation has relatively little value in increasing the legitimacy” of district councils.
Sonny Lo told the Post that the government’s efforts were conditioned by a promotional message that seemed to be too monotonous – just to remind people to vote on Sunday. On the other hand, he says that voters didn’t have the necessary information about the candidates to make up their minds, “even if they are supporters of the pro-Beijing faction”.
For the political scientist, the winners will have to learn to stand out, since now the competition is internal – with candidates from the same political camp, with no opposition. This is an issue that worries him, as he predicts that infighting could jeopardize social harmony, pointing out that the next elections for the Legislative Council will take place in 2025.
One of the winning candidates, Chris Ip Ngo-tung of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), attributed the lukewarm reaction of voters to the revision of electoral rules. “Our voters may have to learn the new rules, so it may be difficult to get a very high percentage,” the Post quoted him as saying.
Eve arrests
Police arrested at least six people on Sunday. Three of them were activists from the League of Social Democrats – one of the last opposition groups in the city – who had planned to organize a protest.
The police first accused the trio of “trying to incite others to disrupt the district council elections” and later brought them before the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on suspicion of “inciting others not to vote”.
On Friday, the national security police arrested a 77-year-old man for “attempting to commit seditious acts”. Last week, a 38-year-old man was accused of inciting a boycott of the elections by publishing a video of a foreign commentator that allegedly had this objective.
The newly elected members of the CD will begin their four-year term on 1 January 2024.
