Prologue Journal

Get out the vote: Official efforts to encourage Hongkongers to cast their ballots in ‘patriots’ District Council race

• prologu5
• 12/09/202312/09/2023

Hong Kong Free Press

When Hong Kong’s government in May announced restrictive new arrangements for a “patriots-only” District Council election, officials played down the importance of voter turnout – saying it would not reflect the credibility of the vote.

Speaking to a radio station soon after the overhaul was proposed, Executive Council convenor Regina Ip said that turnout was not an ideal indicator for electoral success or enthusiasm. Months later, Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak said that the number of voters was not a measure of a successful election, but instead it should be judged on the calibre of the candidates chosen.

But the official line appears to have changed in recent weeks. A variety of officials and organisations have been actively promoting polling on Sunday, from which opposition candidates have been excluded, with the city’s leader calling voting a “civic responsibility.”

The last time Hongkongers went to the ballots to choose their local council members in 2019, around 71 per cent of registered voters turned out to deliver a pro-democracy landslide amid protests that erupted that year over a since-axed extradition bill. This year, Lau Siu-kai, a consultant for semi-official Beijing think tank the Chinese Association of Hong Kong & Macao Studies, has predicted that turnout could fall below 20 per cent.

Last week, Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan even went so far as to question whether councillors elected under low turnout figures could really represent local voters.

“If turnout is low, can the elected councillor really represent the district?” Chan asked during a NowTV interview. “It would be a shame if the elected councillor isn’t the one that residents hoped to elect.”

Under the new system, the number of seats voted for by the public has been slashed from 452 to 88 – less than one fifth of the total of 470. The remaining seats will be chosen by the city’s leader and government-appointed committees.

The overhauled “patriots-only” race effectively saw opposition parties barred from running, after their members were unable to collect sufficient nominations from the committees.

HKFP looks at the ways the authorities have tried to boost turnout in the poll.

Civil servants to ‘lead by example’

Chief Executive John Lee has urged the city’s 170,000 civil servants to “lead by example” and vote, saying they had a duty to exercise their “civic responsibility,” although chief secretary Chan said they would not be penalised if they failed to do so.

Lee’s remarks came after several top government officials earlier downplayed the importance of voter turnout, saying it could be determined by a wide range of factors, including the weather.

“In an election, the turnout can’t be the only focus,” Mak said in July. “If it rains, or if it’s 40 degrees [Celsius] out, that could probably affect the voter turnout.”

Despite the newfound emphasis on voting, the government has not released an objective or an estimation for the turnout rate on Sunday.

Thank you card

Voters in Sunday’s election will be given a thank you card – part of a slew of “heartfelt touches” arranged for the District Council race.

Officials also created three mascots – Blue Ballot, Red Ballot and Grandpa Ballot – whose likenesses are printed on foam boards outside polling stations for photo opportunities. A new version of the Cantopop classic Below the Lion Rock has been produced, with new lyrics, as part of the polling drive.

Leung Chau-ting, the founder and chairman of the Federation of Civil Service Unions, told Commercial Radio on Wednesday that the cards were a form of “intangible pressure,” and that the union was concerned they would have to present the cards as proof of voting.

But Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak told reporters that there was no need to “overinterpret” the move, while chief secretary Chan dismissed such concerns as “conspiracy theories.”

Poster campaigns

Ahead of Sunday’s polls, authorities have displayed promotions for the upcoming race on banners, installations, LED displays, and more, across the city. The posters, which read, “Cast your vote at DC election for a better community,” vary in scale, from small flyers to billboards spanning an entire building’s exterior wall.

Trucks and vans fitted with loudspeakers, operated by District Council candidates and various pro-Beijing organisations, have also patrolled the streets of Hong Kong calling on people to vote on Sunday.

Several government-operated primary and secondary schools, meanwhile, have also put up promotions for the polls, despite most students not being of legal age to vote.

The last time Hong Kong saw a publicity drive of a comparable scale for an election was for the 2021 Legislative Council elections, which saw a record low turnout of around 30.2 per cent. The Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau said the authorities had spent more than HK$100 million – the amount spent to publicise the 2021 election – on this year’s publicity drive.

To promote China’s National Day on October 1 this year, the government spent more than HK$31 million in taxpayer money on some 120,000 festive items including flags, banners, and monitor displays.

‘Fun Day’

Lee has announced plans for an outdoor concert, a drone show, and a Security Bureau-themed photography exhibition the day before the elections to “further [enhance] the election atmosphere.”

People will be able to visit the Hong Kong Science Museum, Hong Kong Space Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art and Hong Kong Wetland Park free of charge, while the Central Library will host a photography exhibition featuring the police and the Correctional Services Department.

The “District Council Election Fun Day” is designed “to encourage the public to fulfil their civic responsibility by casting their votes,” according to a government statement.

Promotional skits

The government also released several promotional videos calling on residents to vote, including one in which police commissioner Raymond Siu, appearing to play a barber, says in Cantonese: “You don’t have to bleach your hair, but you do have to vote!”

The Chinese term for “vote,” which when pronounced in reverse is homophonic with the Chinese for “bleach hair”.

The Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau also released its own video, apparently a parody of the 2002 crime thriller Infernal Affairs.

Border polls

Authorities are setting up polling booths near the border for Hongkongers working in mainland China, attracting just under 13,000 registrations, or about a third of the quota of 38,000. The government said last month when the arrangement was announced that it would raise the limit if it received sufficient registrations.

The arrangement was made after the government “received many views and voices from the community” that residents in mainland China wanted easier access to polling booths.

Subsidised trips to polls for elders

The Social Welfare Department has given 215 elderly community centres a one-off allowance of HK$20,000 to bus seniors to the polls on Sunday. Home affairs minister Mak backed the move, saying on Tuesday that it would not affect the fairness of the election.

In previous elections, local media reported on controversial efforts to bus elderly residents to polling stations, alleging that they were instructed who to vote for.

External support

Separately, several major players in the business community have joined efforts to publicise the patriots-only race. Last month, airline Cathay Pacific offered discounted fares for voters living in the mainland to boost turnout, telling local media that the move was meant to facilitate “active participation” in Sunday’s polls.

The Real Estate Developers Association, meanwhile, has also thrown its support behind the ballot, with chairman Stewart Leung saying in a promotional video – which appears as a pop-up on the association’s website – that some 800 of its members supported the election.

Victor Li of real estate developer CK Holdings has also said he would vote in the election, and that he hoped the public would also head to the polls.

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