Pro-Beijing "patriots" won a majority in Hong Kong elections in what critics have described as undemocratic after authorities imprisoned pro-democracy activists and excluded opposition, resulting in a record-low turnout.
The turnout for the recent elections was recorded at 30.2%, which is roughly half of the previous poll in 2016. Pro-democracy activists saw the low turnout to be a rebuke of Beijing's imposition of broad national security law and sweeping electoral changes. Many considered the actions as Beijing's attempts to have Hong Kong under its authoritarian control.
Hong Kong Elections
Pro-Beijing and pro-establishment candidates won nearly all of the available seats, with some cheering at the vote-counting center, chanting "guaranteed win." During a news conference on Monday, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam acknowledged the low turnout but did not provide details on why it resulted in that way.
"But 1.35 million coming out to vote - it cannot be said that it was not an election that did not get a lot of support from citizens," said Lam. Many political analysts said that the historically low turnout was a measure of an election's legitimacy due to the lack of pro-democracy candidates Reuters reported.
The voter turnout is the lowest that has been seen in Hong Kong since the British handed the territory over to China in 1997. Under the laws in the region, the number of directly elected lawmakers has gone down to 20 from 35. This is despite the legislature being expanded from 70 to 90 seats.
A primarily pro-Beijing committee vetted all candidates before the elections before they could even be nominated. In a statement, Lam said that a high turnout based on "poor politics" would not have been something good to have.
An elected pro-Beijing legislative council candidate, Starry Lee, who is from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong party, said that the 30% turnout was within expectations. He said that the region was trying a new system that aimed to call patriots administrating Hong Kong, Fox News reported.
Results of the Voting
A senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, Tim Summers, said that the winners of the elections, who are nearly all pro-establishment candidates, focused more on livelihood issues and social issues. On Monday, he said that the elected officials are dominating the legislature.
The issues that the officials are focusing on range from housing and poverty to the environment, Summers said. He added that the people of Hong Kong will most likely still see a decent amount of contestation and debate regarding the other livelihood issues that the region is struggling with.
The vice-president of Beijing-based think tank the China Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, Lau Siu-Kai, echoed Summers' sentiments. He added that the new legislature will mainly prioritize "practical matters" such as the city's housing shortage, climbing real-estate prices, and income equality.
"They saw a much greater radicalization of Hong Kong politics over the last five or six years. They wanted to cut that off after the massive social movements, often violent movements of 2019," said Summers, CNBC reported.
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