Sunday’s election to Hong Kong’s legislative council was held under a sweeping new security law choreographed at the behest of China. The outcome, therefore, is a fairly settled fact. It was an overhauled “patriots-only” legislative arrangement. Indeed a measure of the groundswell of opposition to the new construct was that both the government and candidates made a last-ditch effort to boost the turnout.
After eight hours of voting, the turnout was more than ten percentage points below the previous Legislative Council elections held five years ago. After at least five years of turmoil, most particularly the Umbrella movement, candidates were screened by the government as “patriots” before being declared eligible to run.
While the mainstream pro-democracy parties are not contesting, the new arrangement has been criticized by activists and rights groups as well as governments abroad. The turnout has become a central issue not the least because it is a barometer of legitimacy in an election where pro-democracy candidates have largely abstained. More than one-third of the seats will be selected by a committee predominantly of Beijing loyalists.
This is a faint echo of the arrangement in Myanmar where 25 per cent of the seats in parliament were earmarked for the junta. Scores of democrats are said to have been imprisoned in Hong Kong in the wake of a crackdown under a national security law, indeed the brainchild of China. Had this not happened, the government in Beijing might have delegitimised the election. Civil society groups have been disbanded.
Two developments on polling day reaffirm the controversy that has impaired the latest tryst with democracy. While the government sent text messages urging people to vote, critics of China’s remote-control intervention urged voters to abstain as a mark of protest.
After eight hours of voting, official figures showed 21.02 per cent of the electorate had voted, down from 31.16 per cent at the same juncture in 2016. John Lee, chief secretary and a former security chief, urged people to vote, saying those excluded were “traitors” who wanted the vote to be reduced to a fizzle. A substantial segment of the electorate made it clear that they would not participate in an election that was neither fair nor democratic.
Far from turning up at the polling booths, many bared their angst at the changes that had turned the election into a process of “selection” and the legislature into a “puppet”. The reality perhaps lies in the cosy arrangement between the “selectors” and the “puppet”, masquerading as the Legislative Council. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, if among the first to vote, said the government “had not set any target” on the turnout. She might as well acknowledge that the turnout was pathetic, though the candid admission might ruffle feathers in President Xi Jinping’s China.