Hong Kong’s first “patriots only”
district council elections witnessed a turnout of 27.5 per cent, said the
government on Monday. It’s the record-low number for a race that had shut out
all Opposition candidates.
The city last held district council
elections at the peak of huge, sometimes violent, democracy protests in 2019,
recording a historic-high 71 per cent turnout that delivered a landslide win for
the democracy camp.
But a clampdown on dissent – backed by a
sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing – has included a drive by
authorities to weed out from public office anyone deemed politically disloyal
after the protests.
Sunday’s voting day stretched to
midnight after a rare 90-minute extension was permitted following a failure in
the digital system used to confirm voters’ eligibility.
Despite the extra time, the government’s
official website was updated on the morning of Monday to present a final
turnout of 27.54 per cent, with just shy of 1.2 million out of 4.3 million
registered electors having gone to the polls.
Previously, the lowest turnout rate
since the city’s handover to China was 35.82 per cent, recorded in 1999.
City leader John Lee had expressed
gratitude to the “more than 1 million” voters at around 1:45 am Monday (1745
GMT Sunday) for coming out.
After voting Sunday, he said this year’s
election was “the last piece of the puzzle to implement the principle of
patriots ruling Hong Kong”.
“From now on, the district councils
would no longer be what they were in the past – which was a platform to
destruct and reject the government’s administration, to promote Hong Kong
independence and to endanger national security,” Lee said after he cast his
ballot on Sunday.
As per new rules announced in May, the
number of seats that could be directly elected was slashed from 462 to 88, with
the other 382 seats controlled by the city leader, government loyalists and
rural landlords.
Candidates were required to seek
nominations from three government-appointed committees, which effectively shut
out all pro-democracy parties.
Over 70 per cent of the candidates
picked to run for the election were members of the nominating committees.
Police acted swiftly to clamp down on
any sign of dissent on Sunday, arresting at least six people.
Three were activists from the League of
Social Democrats – one of the city’s last remaining opposition groups – which
had planned to stage a protest.
The League called the arrest “extremely
ironic and ridiculous”.
Earlier, the national security police
arrested a 77-year-old man and a 38-year-old man.
AFP
