Pro-democracy politicians projected to control 18 out of 18 councils after proxy vote on Carrie Lam’s leadership
Hong Kong’s voters have turned out in record numbers to deliver a landslide for pro-democracy campaigners in local elections, handing them control of every one of the region’s 18 councils for the first time.
The results are a powerful rebuke to the government in a vote that was widely seen as a proxy referendum on the city’s protest movement.
Both in absolute numbers and in turnout rates it was easily the biggest exercise in democratic participation that Hong Kong has seen, with many voters waiting more than an hour to cast their ballots.
Hong Kong: protests prompt huge turnout for local elections
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When polls closed at 10.30pm on Sunday, nearly 3 million people had voted, representing more than 71% of the electorate and nearly half of Hong Kong’s population. Many had never voted before.
Pro-democracy politicians took control of all of the city’s 18 district councils, an unexpected clean sweep that analysts say was a unanimous vote of no confidence in the government.
It is also a sea change in Hong Kong politics, where pro-Beijing and government politicians have enjoyed a wealth of resources and support from the elite sectors.
“I would not use the word happy, but we have made progress towards a situation where we can fight back against the government,” said Clarisse Yeung, an artist-turned-politician who led campaigning in the Wan Chai district, and announced the shift of power with tears in her eyes.
“It’s important because we all know that we have been sacrificing too much in the past few months,” she said. “Hong Kong people are no longer naive. We have to prepare ourselves, we have to have faith in ourselves to bring change.”
A string of prominent pro-Beijing candidates were also evicted from what had been safe seats, among them Junius Ho, who has been widely reviled for shaking hands with a gang of thugs who attacked protesters and commuters in July.
There will be few immediate political consequences in Hong Kong because the councils have limited powers, only a small budget and a mandate restricted to hyper-local issues such as parks, bus stops and waste collection.
But the pro-democratic landslide was a defiant rebuke to the government’s frequent argument that its hardline policies had the support of a “silent majority”, who had been cowed by protester violence. In a peaceful vote, the city’s people came out against them.
It will also give Communist party chiefs in Beijing – who have backed the government as it dug into confrontation with demonstrators – cause to reconsider their approach. Hong Kong’s protests are perhaps the biggest challenge to China’s autocratic president, Xi Jinping, since he took power in 2012.
And these local election victories may sow the seeds of greater long-term influence for democrats, because the councils play a role in choosing the city’s chief executive and some legislators.
Many of those who turned out on Sunday had never cast a ballot before. “It’s my first time voting. I registered myself because of the [protest] movement,” said Vivian Lee, an insurance worker in her 30s. “I’m happy so many people have come out to vote, because we want our voices heard.”
Despite long queues outside polling stations a spirit of exhilaration gripped much of the city, perhaps because people had a chance to give private, peaceful verdicts on a showdown that has upended normal life.
It was the first weekend without teargas on the streets since mid-August, though after voting ended, riot police did end an almost entirely peaceful day by using pepper spray to resolve a dispute between supporters of rival candidates.
District elections had not previously attracted much interest in Hong Kong, or beyond. The councils have a reputation for self-serving indolence and for years they were packed by disciplined and well-funded pro-Beijing candidates.
But months of pro-democracy protests, from a 2 million-strong peaceful march in June, to increasingly violent street demonstrations that culminated in a siege of a city-centre university, turned a sleepy local poll into something more significant.
It was widely seen as a proxy referendum on the leader, Carrie Lam, who responded to the movement by backing an escalation of police action and refusing to negotiate or compromise with the protesters.
For many in Hong Kong, that made the poll both an opportunity and an obligation, particularly important because district councils are the only Hong Kong authority selected by full universal suffrage. The city’s leader is chosen by an electoral college and only some seats in the city’s legislature are selected in open ballots.
“If you are willing to march or protest in the streets, which requires blood and sweat and tears, it’s much easier to walk downstairs and vote,” said one man who has taken part in the street protests, and asked not to be named because of fear of official retaliation. “Even if the system is broken, we can try to use it against the government.”
A last-minute surge in registrations added nearly 400,000 voters to the electoral rolls – most of them young – and a wave of novice pro-democracy candidates meant that for the first time in Hong Kong’s history every seat was contested.
Many pro-Beijing candidates were running on promises to “stop the violence” of the protests in which at least two people have died and hundreds have been injured, some critically.
Authorities have tried to paint the demonstrators as unreasonable extremists, and brush off calls for an independent inquiry into escalating police brutality.
But even in establishment strongholds, support for pro-democracy candidates grew. Adrian Lau ran in a seat that had never been contested by a pro-democracy candidate before, near a village where in July thugs thought to have links to the establishment attacked protesters and commuters.
“Many people have completely lost trust in the police after the incident,” he said. “Some told us they’d vote for us and thank us for giving them an alternative but daren’t say that out loud.”
Stephen, a retired businessman in his 60s voting in the affluent Mid-Levels neighbourhood, said: “This will send the message to the government that they should be more humble. It’s your job to serve people, and not beat people up if they don’t listen to you.”
Timeline
Hong Kong protests
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February 2019
A new Hong Kong extradition law is proposed, which would allow people to be transferred to mainland China for a variety of crimes. Residents fear it could lead to politically motivated extraditions into China's much harsher judicial system.
31 March 2019
Large public demonstrations start as thousands march in the streets to protest against the extradition bill.
11 May 2019
Hong Kong lawmakers scuffle in parliament during a row over the law.
30 May 2019
Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, introduces concessions to the extradition bill, including limiting the scope of extraditable offences, but critics say they are not enough.
12 June 2019
The scale of protests continues to increase as more than half a million people take to the streets. Police use rubber bullets and teargas against the biggest protests Hong Kong has seen for decades.
15 June 2019
Lam says the proposed extradition law has been postponed indefinitely.
1 July 2019
The protests continue as demonstrators storm the Legislative Council, destroying pictures, daubing graffiti on the walls and flying the old flag of Hong Kong emblazoned with the British union flag. The protests coincide with the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from the UK back to China.
21 July 2019
Armed men in white T-shirts thought to be supporting the Chinese government attack passengers and passers-by in Yuen Long metro station, while nearby police take no action.
30 July 2019
44 protesters are charged with rioting, which further antagonises the anti-extradition bill movement.
September 2019
By now the protest movement has coalesced around five key demands: complete withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill, withdrawal of the use of the word "riot" in relation to the protests, unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them dropped, an independent inquiry into police behaviour and the implementation of genuine universal suffrage.
15 September 2019
The mass protests enter their fifteenth week, with police resorting to teargas and water cannon against the demonstrators, and a wave of "doxxing" using digital techniques to unmask police and protesters as a new front in the battle.
1 October 2019
Police shoot a protester with live ammunition for the first time, as demonstrations continue on the day marking the 70th anniversary of the declaration of the People's Republic of China.
7 October 2019
The first charges are brought against protesters for covering their faces, after authorities bring in new laws banning face masks in order to make it easier to identify or detain protesters.
11 October 2019
Hong Kong officials spark outrage in the city as it revealed that nearly a third of protesters arrested since June have been children. Seven hundred and 50 out of the 2,379 people arrested were under 18, and 104 were under 16.
16 October 2019
Lam is forced to deliver a key annual policy speech via video link after after being heckled in parliament, as the legislative council resumed sessions after it was suspended on 12 June. Later in the day one of the protest leaders, Jimmy Sham, was attacked by assailants wielding hammers and knives.
23 October 2019
Chan Tong-kai, the murder suspect whose case prompted the original extradition bill is released from prison, saying that he is willing to surrender himself to Taiwan. The extradition bill is also formally withdrawn, a key demand of protesters.
8 November 2019
Chow Tsz-lok, 22, becomes the first fatality of the protests. Chow, a computer science student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), was found injured in a car park in Tseung Kwan O in Kowloon, where he was believed to have fallen one storey. Protesters had been trying to disrupt a police officer’s wedding, which was being held in the area. A week later a 70-year-old cleaner who is thought to have been hit by a brick during a clash between protesters and pro-Beijing residents becomes the second person to die.
18 November 2019
Hundreds of protestors are trapped as police lay siege to a university, firing tear gas.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/24/hong-kong-residents-turn-up-for-local-elections-in-record-numbers?fbclid=IwAR3lOih1aI2_Ga3FQ0cWY_tx5s95OUeEvzIyaUtd0sT49tGHO7bNTCuAFDU
Sunday, November 24, 2019
[Telegraph], !即時 Instant News, Protests drive record numbers to Hong Kong polls in 'referendum on Carrie Lam'
Hong Kong voters turned out in record numbers on Sunday for district elections, with early results showing pro-democracy candidates triumphing over those who have sided with Beijing in the six-month-long protests.
The election is widely viewed as a test of public support for pro-Beijing chief executive Carrie Lam’s handling of pro-democracy protests that have plunged the Asian financial hub into crisis.
Results started to trickle out after midnight and showed at least a dozen pro-democracy candidates winning, including former student leaders.
Among them was a candidate who replaced prominent activist Joshua Wong, the only person barred from running in the election.
Rally organiser Jimmy Sham, one of the public faces of the protest movement who was bloodied in an attack by assailants with hammers last month, also triumphed.
Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho, who was stabbed by a knife-wielding man while campaigning this month, was among those who lost.
The poll for delegates on the lowest tier of government – which has never had so much attention - will also be a barometer of public patience with the protest movement.
The unrest has seen many violent street clashes with riot police and at times crippled the city’s business and transport networks.
A record 4.1 million people registered to vote in the election, which normally sees a turnout rate of about 40 per cent.
By 8am, long queues had already formed outside the city’s 600 polling stations, while government data showed more than 2.94 million people had voted, putting the turnout rate at 70 per cent.
About 1.47 million voted in the last district elections four years ago, which was itself a record.
In the bitterly divided city, many voters said that they would make their choice not on local issues, but based on their views of the ongoing political turmoil – the worst unrest that Hong Kong has experienced since it switched from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
“We want to change the government. We want to use the district elections to express our voice,” said Shirley Ng, 50, a social welfare worker, in Sham Shui Po, a predominantly working class neighbourhood in Kowloon.
“There has been a political awakening that has made people more aware of what the government is doing,” she said.
A few blocks away, voters waited patiently to enter a polling station on Pei Ho Street, an area badly affected by tear gas in recent battles between the police and more radical protesters who set up burning roadblocks.
Mr Wong, an accountant in his late 30s, said this election was especially important to him, revealing that his business had suffered during the unrest, but he added: “If they kill us and take our freedom, what’s the point of giving us good business?”
A record 1,104 candidates were vying for 452 seats.
Although district councils normally deal with mundane issues like recycling and building management, they also have an important say in the selection of the city’s chief executive, who is not directly elected by the public.
If the pro-democracy camp gains control, they could secure six seats in the Legislative Council, or parliament, and 117 seats on the 1,200-member panel that appoints Hong Kong’s leader.
Cathy Yau, 36, a pan-Democratic candidate standing in Causeway Bay, left her job in the embattled police force to run for office.
The first salvos of tear gas fired at protesters in June had been the tipping point, she said.
The protests, now a rallying cry for democracy, started over a now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial.
“The government didn’t quickly address the voices that are against the extradition bill,” said Ms Yau.
“I didn’t understand why the government would not give a response.”
Bruce Lui, a senior journalism lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University, said that both pro-Beijing and pro-democratic parties had afforded new meaning to the local polls this year, to include their stances on recent violence.
“This is way beyond the highlights of the candidates' manifesto on purely 'district affairs',” he said.
The district elections have traditionally been the bastion of pro-Beijing parties, and government supporters also saw Sunday’s poll as a chance to share their opinions.
“I always come out to vote, but this year I am nervous about the political situation of the last few months. Lots of rioters are destroying Hong Kong,” said Kathy, 46, a housewife from Causeway Bay, which has seen some of the largest demonstrations in the city’s history.
In Sha Tin, Hong Kong’s most populous district, Mrs Pang, a housewife in her 70s, said she wanted to vote to restore “harmony” in society. “Social unrest has created unease in my life... it’s had a big impact on me,” she said.
If the pan-Democratic bloc wins, it could exert more pressure on Carrie Lam, the unpopular chief executive to find new ways to resolve the impasse with the protest movement.
Lord David Alton, who joined an international election observers team to monitor the poll, said the crisis needed a “political solution.”
He added: “I would like to see the appointment of a respected mediator from within the region…I would say the most pressing demand at the moment is dealing with the issue of police brutality.”
Denying the public the right to vote for the city’s leader had left a “sense of powerlessness” that had fueled the protests, he argued.
“If great cities like Paris or London or New York can have directly elected mayors then why can’t Hong Kong? The answer to that is that Beijing has opposed it.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/24/protests-drive-record-numbers-hong-kong-polls-referendum-carrie/?fbclid=IwAR2ZiJLz3kXzJD3b4KNtynK7gJFQDVVkAZBnmnO_W7Mh8-aozezqVdttUWg
The election is widely viewed as a test of public support for pro-Beijing chief executive Carrie Lam’s handling of pro-democracy protests that have plunged the Asian financial hub into crisis.
Results started to trickle out after midnight and showed at least a dozen pro-democracy candidates winning, including former student leaders.
Among them was a candidate who replaced prominent activist Joshua Wong, the only person barred from running in the election.
Rally organiser Jimmy Sham, one of the public faces of the protest movement who was bloodied in an attack by assailants with hammers last month, also triumphed.
Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho, who was stabbed by a knife-wielding man while campaigning this month, was among those who lost.
The poll for delegates on the lowest tier of government – which has never had so much attention - will also be a barometer of public patience with the protest movement.
The unrest has seen many violent street clashes with riot police and at times crippled the city’s business and transport networks.
A record 4.1 million people registered to vote in the election, which normally sees a turnout rate of about 40 per cent.
By 8am, long queues had already formed outside the city’s 600 polling stations, while government data showed more than 2.94 million people had voted, putting the turnout rate at 70 per cent.
About 1.47 million voted in the last district elections four years ago, which was itself a record.
In the bitterly divided city, many voters said that they would make their choice not on local issues, but based on their views of the ongoing political turmoil – the worst unrest that Hong Kong has experienced since it switched from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
“We want to change the government. We want to use the district elections to express our voice,” said Shirley Ng, 50, a social welfare worker, in Sham Shui Po, a predominantly working class neighbourhood in Kowloon.
“There has been a political awakening that has made people more aware of what the government is doing,” she said.
A few blocks away, voters waited patiently to enter a polling station on Pei Ho Street, an area badly affected by tear gas in recent battles between the police and more radical protesters who set up burning roadblocks.
Mr Wong, an accountant in his late 30s, said this election was especially important to him, revealing that his business had suffered during the unrest, but he added: “If they kill us and take our freedom, what’s the point of giving us good business?”
A record 1,104 candidates were vying for 452 seats.
Although district councils normally deal with mundane issues like recycling and building management, they also have an important say in the selection of the city’s chief executive, who is not directly elected by the public.
If the pro-democracy camp gains control, they could secure six seats in the Legislative Council, or parliament, and 117 seats on the 1,200-member panel that appoints Hong Kong’s leader.
Cathy Yau, 36, a pan-Democratic candidate standing in Causeway Bay, left her job in the embattled police force to run for office.
The first salvos of tear gas fired at protesters in June had been the tipping point, she said.
The protests, now a rallying cry for democracy, started over a now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial.
“The government didn’t quickly address the voices that are against the extradition bill,” said Ms Yau.
“I didn’t understand why the government would not give a response.”
Bruce Lui, a senior journalism lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University, said that both pro-Beijing and pro-democratic parties had afforded new meaning to the local polls this year, to include their stances on recent violence.
“This is way beyond the highlights of the candidates' manifesto on purely 'district affairs',” he said.
The district elections have traditionally been the bastion of pro-Beijing parties, and government supporters also saw Sunday’s poll as a chance to share their opinions.
“I always come out to vote, but this year I am nervous about the political situation of the last few months. Lots of rioters are destroying Hong Kong,” said Kathy, 46, a housewife from Causeway Bay, which has seen some of the largest demonstrations in the city’s history.
In Sha Tin, Hong Kong’s most populous district, Mrs Pang, a housewife in her 70s, said she wanted to vote to restore “harmony” in society. “Social unrest has created unease in my life... it’s had a big impact on me,” she said.
If the pan-Democratic bloc wins, it could exert more pressure on Carrie Lam, the unpopular chief executive to find new ways to resolve the impasse with the protest movement.
Lord David Alton, who joined an international election observers team to monitor the poll, said the crisis needed a “political solution.”
He added: “I would like to see the appointment of a respected mediator from within the region…I would say the most pressing demand at the moment is dealing with the issue of police brutality.”
Denying the public the right to vote for the city’s leader had left a “sense of powerlessness” that had fueled the protests, he argued.
“If great cities like Paris or London or New York can have directly elected mayors then why can’t Hong Kong? The answer to that is that Beijing has opposed it.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/24/protests-drive-record-numbers-hong-kong-polls-referendum-carrie/?fbclid=IwAR2ZiJLz3kXzJD3b4KNtynK7gJFQDVVkAZBnmnO_W7Mh8-aozezqVdttUWg
[New York Times], !即時 Instant News, Hong Kong Election Results Give Democracy Backers Big Win
A surge in voting, especially by young people, allowed democracy advocates to win many more seats on local councils.
HONG KONG — Pro-democracy candidates buoyed by months of street protests in Hong Kong won a stunning victory in local elections on Sunday, as record numbers voted in a vivid expression of the city’s aspirations and its anger with the Chinese government.
It was a pointed rebuke of Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong, and the turnout — seven in 10 eligible voters — suggested that the public continues to back the democracy movement, even as the protests grow increasingly violent. Young Hong Kongers, a major force behind the demonstrations of the past six months, played a leading role in the voting surge.
With three million voters casting ballots, pro-democracy candidates captured 389 of 452 elected seats, up from only 124 and far more than they have ever won. With one race undecided, the government’s allies held just 57 seats, a remarkable collapse from 300.
To many democracy advocates, Sunday was a turning point.
“There has been a very deep awakening of the Hong Kong people,” said Alan Leong, chairman of the Civic Party, one of the largest pro-democracy parties.
The elections were for district councils, one of the lowest elected offices in Hong Kong, and they are typically a subdued affair focused on community issues. The job mostly entails pushing for neighborhood needs like bus stops and traffic lights.
But this election took on outsize significance, and was viewed as a referendum on the unrest that has created the city’s worst political crisis in decades. In a semiautonomous part of China where greater democracy is one of the protesters’ biggest demands, it gave residents a rare chance to vote.
The gains at the ballot box are likely to embolden a democracy movement that has struggled with how to balance peaceful and violent protests to achieve its goals.
They are also likely to deepen the challenges for China’s central government, which wants to curb the unrest in Hong Kong. And they might exacerbate Beijing’s fears about giving the city’s residents even greater say in choosing their government.
The district councils are among the most democratic bodies in Hong Kong. Almost all the seats are directly elected, unlike the legislature, where the proportion is just over half. The territory’s chief executive is also not chosen directly by voters, but is instead selected by a committee stacked in favor of Beijing.
The election results will give democracy forces considerably more influence on that committee, which is scheduled to choose a new chief executive in 2022.
The district councils name about a tenth of the group's 1,200 members, and now all of these will flip from pro-Beijing to pro-democracy seats. Democracy advocates already control about a quarter of the seats, while other previously pro-Beijing sectors of the committee are now starting to lean toward democracy, most notably accountants and real estate lawyers.
Mr. Leong, the Civic Party chairman, called on the Chinese Communist Party to change its policies in Hong Kong.
“Unless the C.C.P. is doing something concrete to address the concerns of the Hong Kong people,” he said, “I think this movement cannot end.”
Regina Ip, a cabinet member and the leader of a pro-Beijing political party, said she was surprised to see so many young voters, many of whom tried to confront her with the protesters’ demands.
“Normally,” she said, “the young people do not come out to vote. But this time, the opposition managed to turn them out.”
Ahead of the election, the city’s leadership was concerned that the vote would be marred by the chaos of recent months. Some of the most violent clashes yet between protesters and the police took place last week, turning two university campuses into battlegrounds.
But the city remained relatively calm on Sunday as voters turned out in droves. Long lines formed at polling centers in the morning, snaking around skyscrapers and past small shops. Riot police officers were deployed near polling stations on Sunday.
David Lee, a retired printer approaching his 90th birthday, was among the earliest voters on Hong Kong Island and said he had come because he wanted democracy.
“This is important,” he said.
Some analysts had predicted that pro-democracy candidates would have difficulty making big gains. Pro-Beijing candidates are much better financed, and the district races have traditionally been won on purely local issues, not big questions like democracy, said Joseph Cheng, a retired professor at City University of Hong Kong.
But voter turnout soared to 71 percent, far surpassing expectations. Typically in district council elections, it is little more than 40 percent. Four years ago, after the 2014 Umbrella Movement increased public interest in politics, turnout climbed to 47 percent. This year, the number of registered voters hit a record.
On Sunday, several prominent pro-Beijing politicians lost their races, among them Michael Tien, a longtime establishment lawmaker. After his defeat, he said the increase in young voters signaled that they were becoming more politically engaged, adding that the government should listen to them.
In the district of Tuen Mun, about a hundred people celebrated with cheers and champagne the defeat of Junius Ho, a controversial lawmaker many protesters accused of supporting mob attacks against them.
The victory on Sunday eclipsed the pro-democracy camp’s last big win in these elections, when they won 198 seats, still short of a majority, following huge protests in 2003. Those demonstrations led the government to scrap a national security bill requested by Beijing that critics said would have endangered civil liberties in Hong Kong.
The government’s allies dominated the elections that followed, though. Beijing began investing heavily in grass-roots mobilization efforts, including busing large numbers of older Hong Kong citizens from retirement homes in mainland China to polling places in Hong Kong.
Instead of just focusing on local issues, many pro-democracy candidates ran on the broad themes of the protest movement, especially anger at police brutality, and the intensity of the demonstrations sometimes spilled into the race. Candidates on both sides were attacked while campaigning.
Mandy Lee, 53, a homemaker who voted at the Kowloon Bay neighborhood, showed up to vote for the pro-Beijing establishment and criticized the protests.
“It’s not that I have no sympathy toward young people, but I strongly believe that their efforts are futile,” she said. “We are a tiny island; it’s only a matter of time before China takes us over and integrates us.”
The outcome of the election could further complicate the position of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s embattled chief executive. Critics say that she has failed to engage with the community over the protests and that she has not listened to people’s concerns.
In June, Mrs. Lam set off enormous protests by pushing ahead with a bill that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong residents to the opaque judicial system in mainland China. The issue played to deeper worries about Beijing’s encroachment on Hong Kong, which has maintained its own political and judicial system since the former British colony was reclaimed by China in 1997.
Mrs. Lam withdrew her proposal after months of protests, but many said she acted too late. The protesters are now demanding additional concessions, including the introduction of universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into police conduct.
The election results on Sunday will allow them to argue that the public supports them. About 57 percent of voters cast ballots for pro-democracy candidates, while nearly 40 percent voted for Beijing’s allies. The remaining 3 percent voted for independents, who won five seats.
Many pro-Beijing political parties receive large donations from the Hong Kong subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises in mainland China, which they use to organize picnics and other campaign events. But the results on Sunday showed the limits of these efforts.
Matthew Cheung, the chief secretary and second-highest official of the Hong Kong government, said on Sunday during the voting that the city’s leadership would pay close attention to the results of the vote no matter how it turned out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/world/asia/hong-kong-election-results.html?fbclid=IwAR0Z3mgtvXzL5lFJVP3uoSuRZ2KUkbSm_iARzAvB6ddEzas1rtshhJJzDUY
HONG KONG — Pro-democracy candidates buoyed by months of street protests in Hong Kong won a stunning victory in local elections on Sunday, as record numbers voted in a vivid expression of the city’s aspirations and its anger with the Chinese government.
It was a pointed rebuke of Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong, and the turnout — seven in 10 eligible voters — suggested that the public continues to back the democracy movement, even as the protests grow increasingly violent. Young Hong Kongers, a major force behind the demonstrations of the past six months, played a leading role in the voting surge.
With three million voters casting ballots, pro-democracy candidates captured 389 of 452 elected seats, up from only 124 and far more than they have ever won. With one race undecided, the government’s allies held just 57 seats, a remarkable collapse from 300.
To many democracy advocates, Sunday was a turning point.
“There has been a very deep awakening of the Hong Kong people,” said Alan Leong, chairman of the Civic Party, one of the largest pro-democracy parties.
The elections were for district councils, one of the lowest elected offices in Hong Kong, and they are typically a subdued affair focused on community issues. The job mostly entails pushing for neighborhood needs like bus stops and traffic lights.
But this election took on outsize significance, and was viewed as a referendum on the unrest that has created the city’s worst political crisis in decades. In a semiautonomous part of China where greater democracy is one of the protesters’ biggest demands, it gave residents a rare chance to vote.
The gains at the ballot box are likely to embolden a democracy movement that has struggled with how to balance peaceful and violent protests to achieve its goals.
They are also likely to deepen the challenges for China’s central government, which wants to curb the unrest in Hong Kong. And they might exacerbate Beijing’s fears about giving the city’s residents even greater say in choosing their government.
The district councils are among the most democratic bodies in Hong Kong. Almost all the seats are directly elected, unlike the legislature, where the proportion is just over half. The territory’s chief executive is also not chosen directly by voters, but is instead selected by a committee stacked in favor of Beijing.
The election results will give democracy forces considerably more influence on that committee, which is scheduled to choose a new chief executive in 2022.
The district councils name about a tenth of the group's 1,200 members, and now all of these will flip from pro-Beijing to pro-democracy seats. Democracy advocates already control about a quarter of the seats, while other previously pro-Beijing sectors of the committee are now starting to lean toward democracy, most notably accountants and real estate lawyers.
Mr. Leong, the Civic Party chairman, called on the Chinese Communist Party to change its policies in Hong Kong.
“Unless the C.C.P. is doing something concrete to address the concerns of the Hong Kong people,” he said, “I think this movement cannot end.”
Regina Ip, a cabinet member and the leader of a pro-Beijing political party, said she was surprised to see so many young voters, many of whom tried to confront her with the protesters’ demands.
“Normally,” she said, “the young people do not come out to vote. But this time, the opposition managed to turn them out.”
Ahead of the election, the city’s leadership was concerned that the vote would be marred by the chaos of recent months. Some of the most violent clashes yet between protesters and the police took place last week, turning two university campuses into battlegrounds.
But the city remained relatively calm on Sunday as voters turned out in droves. Long lines formed at polling centers in the morning, snaking around skyscrapers and past small shops. Riot police officers were deployed near polling stations on Sunday.
David Lee, a retired printer approaching his 90th birthday, was among the earliest voters on Hong Kong Island and said he had come because he wanted democracy.
“This is important,” he said.
Some analysts had predicted that pro-democracy candidates would have difficulty making big gains. Pro-Beijing candidates are much better financed, and the district races have traditionally been won on purely local issues, not big questions like democracy, said Joseph Cheng, a retired professor at City University of Hong Kong.
But voter turnout soared to 71 percent, far surpassing expectations. Typically in district council elections, it is little more than 40 percent. Four years ago, after the 2014 Umbrella Movement increased public interest in politics, turnout climbed to 47 percent. This year, the number of registered voters hit a record.
On Sunday, several prominent pro-Beijing politicians lost their races, among them Michael Tien, a longtime establishment lawmaker. After his defeat, he said the increase in young voters signaled that they were becoming more politically engaged, adding that the government should listen to them.
In the district of Tuen Mun, about a hundred people celebrated with cheers and champagne the defeat of Junius Ho, a controversial lawmaker many protesters accused of supporting mob attacks against them.
The victory on Sunday eclipsed the pro-democracy camp’s last big win in these elections, when they won 198 seats, still short of a majority, following huge protests in 2003. Those demonstrations led the government to scrap a national security bill requested by Beijing that critics said would have endangered civil liberties in Hong Kong.
The government’s allies dominated the elections that followed, though. Beijing began investing heavily in grass-roots mobilization efforts, including busing large numbers of older Hong Kong citizens from retirement homes in mainland China to polling places in Hong Kong.
Instead of just focusing on local issues, many pro-democracy candidates ran on the broad themes of the protest movement, especially anger at police brutality, and the intensity of the demonstrations sometimes spilled into the race. Candidates on both sides were attacked while campaigning.
Mandy Lee, 53, a homemaker who voted at the Kowloon Bay neighborhood, showed up to vote for the pro-Beijing establishment and criticized the protests.
“It’s not that I have no sympathy toward young people, but I strongly believe that their efforts are futile,” she said. “We are a tiny island; it’s only a matter of time before China takes us over and integrates us.”
The outcome of the election could further complicate the position of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s embattled chief executive. Critics say that she has failed to engage with the community over the protests and that she has not listened to people’s concerns.
In June, Mrs. Lam set off enormous protests by pushing ahead with a bill that would have allowed the extradition of Hong Kong residents to the opaque judicial system in mainland China. The issue played to deeper worries about Beijing’s encroachment on Hong Kong, which has maintained its own political and judicial system since the former British colony was reclaimed by China in 1997.
Mrs. Lam withdrew her proposal after months of protests, but many said she acted too late. The protesters are now demanding additional concessions, including the introduction of universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into police conduct.
The election results on Sunday will allow them to argue that the public supports them. About 57 percent of voters cast ballots for pro-democracy candidates, while nearly 40 percent voted for Beijing’s allies. The remaining 3 percent voted for independents, who won five seats.
Many pro-Beijing political parties receive large donations from the Hong Kong subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises in mainland China, which they use to organize picnics and other campaign events. But the results on Sunday showed the limits of these efforts.
Matthew Cheung, the chief secretary and second-highest official of the Hong Kong government, said on Sunday during the voting that the city’s leadership would pay close attention to the results of the vote no matter how it turned out.
“The election is an important political thermometer,” he said. “We will definitely take it seriously.”
Reporting was contributed by K.K. Rebecca Lai in New York and Jin Wu and Katherine Li in Hong Kong.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/world/asia/hong-kong-election-results.html?fbclid=IwAR0Z3mgtvXzL5lFJVP3uoSuRZ2KUkbSm_iARzAvB6ddEzas1rtshhJJzDUY
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