(Hong Kong) Hong Kongers vote until midnight on Sunday in the first local elections reserved for “patriotic” candidates and from which the opposition was excluded after a campaign of repression on grounds of national security.
Half a dozen people were arrested on the sidelines of the vote, which, unusually, was extended by an hour and a half. Electoral Affairs Commission Chairman David Lo cited a failure in the digital system used to confirm voters’ eligibility and issue ballots, denying that turnout had decided the extension.
Authorities have tried to galvanize the electorate and plastered the southern Chinese metropolis with posters to encourage its residents to go to the polls to elect councilors for the city’s 18 districts.
The previous election was held at the height of the huge, sometimes violent protests of 2019. The record turnout of 71% led to a landslide victory for the pro-democracy camp.
“It is the patriots who should rule Hong Kong, that is our principle,” said Mr. Lee, a civil engineer who came early to vote, “the vote will not be affected just because a few [candidats] cannot be part of it.
“Last piece of the puzzle”
Under new rules announced in May, the number of seats affected by direct voting was reduced from 462 to 88.
The other 382 seats are controlled by the leader of China’s special administrative region, people loyal to the government and landowners.
Candidates were required to seek nominations from three government-appointed committees, effectively excluding all pro-democracy parties.
According to the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, John Lee, this election constitutes “the last piece of the puzzle for the implementation of the principle of patriots in power in Hong Kong”, referring to a doctrine imposed by Beijing, since the demonstrations in 2019, aimed at eliminating any dissenting voice from the public service.
“From now on, the district councils will no longer be what they once were, that is, platforms to destroy and reject government administration, promote Hong Kong’s independence and put endangering national security,” argued John Lee after voting on Sunday.
Councilors in Hong Kong’s 18 districts mainly deal with local issues, such as sanitation, transport routes or the adequacy of public facilities.
“Unilateral”
But after Sunday’s election, they will “behave as local advisory bodies and as an echo chamber of the government, in practice,” said Kenneth Chan, a political scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University.
“It’s all about achieving 100% political control,” he added.
For Erick Tsang, the Minister of Constitutional Affairs overseeing the elections, “the participation rate cannot be an indicator of the success of the [nouveau] system “.
However, some voters did not hide their disinterest on the eve of the election.
“What’s the point of voting? The political climate is one-sided,” argued a resident named Ng.
More than 12,000 police officers were deployed to prevent any disruption of the vote, according to local media. Six people were arrested on Sunday.
The League of Social Democrats, one of the last opposition groups that planned to demonstrate against the vote, reported the arrest of three of its members.
Police initially charged the trio with “attempting to incite to disrupt district council elections”, before transferring them to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on suspicion of “inciting people not to not vote.”
The League considered it “extremely ironic and ridiculous” to arrest these three people on an election day intended to reflect diverse public opinions.
The ICAC, for its part, indicated that it had arrested a couple and a woman for having republished or commented on messages on social networks encouraging the population to insert invalid ballots into the ballot boxes.
On Friday, the national security police arrested a 77-year-old man for “attempting to commit seditious acts”.