Pro-democracy candidates have routed their pro-Beijing opponents to win more than half of the seats in Hong Kong’s local council elections and provide a big boost to anti-government protests that have rocked the Asian financial hub.
With votes still being counted, pro-democracy candidates had secured 278 of the 452 district council seats. Pro-establishment forces, which support Beijing, had taken 42 seats while independents, who are not endorsed by either camp, had won 24 seats.
The democratic camp gained control of at least 12 of the 18 district councils. Four years ago, pro-democracy candidates won only 100 seats.
District council elections are historically muted affairs. Councillors wield little political power and the campaign is typically focused on humdrum local issues such as noise pollution.
But on Sunday, more than 2.9m people voted in the district council elections, a record turnout of 71.2 per cent across all territory-wide elections.
For the first time all seats were contested and more than 4m people were registered to vote, an all-time high. The groundswell of interest in the elections came as the city’s protest movement showed no sign of abating, with a stand-off between protesters and police at Polytechnic University entering its second week.
“We can’t be on the front lines but I hope to try to help our young people by casting a vote,” said Raymond Ng, a surveyor in his early 40s who brought his 65-year-old mother to vote for the first time.
“I hope the young people will be less impulsive — if we win at least they will feel better.”
One of the protesters’ demands is for genuine, universal suffrage that they insisted was guaranteed by Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law.
Hong Kong’s district council elections are the most democratic and representative elections in the territory. The business community has an outsized vote in determining the composition of the city’s more powerful Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s de facto parliament, while the chief executive is decided by 1,200 mostly pro-Beijing loyalists.
The local election results will determine 117 of the 1,200 electors who choose the city’s chief executive.
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Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, has the lowest approval ratings of any chief executive in Hong Kong’s history, but no one from her administration has resigned over the worsening political unrest. Dissatisfaction with the government has risen to more than 80 per cent in the latest opinion polls.
“This is the first time I actually read through all the campaign messages of the candidates,” said Helen, 72, who declined to give her last name. “I think Hong Kong now needs representatives who can express the opinions of the general public and to make reasonable demands to the government.”
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