‘Good turnout’: Hong Kong’s John Lee applauds ‘patriots-only’ election, claims city still saw ‘sabotage’ attempts
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s leader John Lee has applauded the “good turnout” in Sunday’s overhauled District Council elections, despite the 27.5 per cent turnout rate being the lowest among any poll since 1997. He also claimed that there were still people who had attempted to “sabotage” the “patriots-only” race.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday morning, Lee said 1.2 million people came out to vote, showing that they believed the “new District Council [elections] will be producing good… District Council members.”
“I think that was a good turnout,” he said, adding that there were people who did not cast a ballot “for different reasons.”
Hong Kong held its first district-level polls since the government overhauled the electoral system, introducing changes that effectively made it impossible for pan-democrats to run. Pro-democracy hopefuls failed to obtain the required nominations from government-appointed committees and were thus shut out of the race. Most traditional democrats remain behind bars, are in self-exile, or have quit politics.
The number of publicly elected seats in the geographic race was also slashed to 20 per cent, with the remainder voted on by government-appointed committees and selected by the chief executive.
With a voter turnout of 27.5 per cent in the geographic race, the patriots-only poll saw the lowest turnout in any election held in Hong Kong since its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
The elections were marred by technical glitches, leading to an extension in polling hours, and the arrest of activists who planned to protest the newly-restriced poll.
“There are of course people who are still trying to sabotage the election. You can see both the [anti-graft watchdog] and police have arrested people who dared to contravene the law to in some way incite people not to come out and vote,” Lee said.
Three members of pro-democracy party the League of Social Democrats when they were on their way to protest the poll on Sunday morning. On Friday, veteran activist Koo Sze-yiu was also apprehended by national security police after informing reporters of plans to protest the overhauled elections.
The “resistance,” Lee said, was “by people who have been rejected by the system because they are not qualified or they do not subscribe to the same principle which is patriots administering Hong Kong.” They had the “wrong idea” of attempting to make the local bodies a political platform for their “own political means,” the chief executive added.
“There are still people who have ideas… as if it’s an agent of a foreign country,” Lee said without citing evidence. “This kind of soft resistance still exists.”
Meanwhile, Beijing has congratulated the winners of the overhauled election, emphasising their diversity and hailing them as patriots who would help to build a better community.
Appointed members to be announced
Among the 470 seats in the overhauled District Councils, 179 will be directly appointed by the government. The last time members were appointed to the District Council was in 2011, after which the appointment system was abolished.
Lee said on Tuesday that the government would announce the list of appointed members in the afternoon.
“We stick to the meritocracy principle… and we take into account their connections with the community,” he told reporters in Cantonese, adding that those picked are “competent, high quality and patriotic.”
The appointed members, Lee said, are “mostly young to middle aged people.” The youngest is 23 and the oldest is 47, he said. Lee added that those appointed include members of the city’s ethnic minority community.
Similar to previous District Councils, 27 seats have been reserved for representatives of rural committees. They will also be announced on Tuesday afternoon.
Lee said the government would introduce a monitoring mechanism to evaluate the performance of District Council members to “ensure that they do well.” The leader said previous district councillors had “pursued their own political interests… and reacted against the governance” of the Hong Kong and central governments.
In 2019, pan-democrats saw a landslide victory in the District Council elections held amid the anti-extradition protests and unrest. Many of the district councillors were subsequently disqualified after government oaths they took were determined to be invalid.
“The new District Council… will be constructive, focusing on livelihood issues, on district matters and the new District Council members will be helping those who live in the district when they have problems they want to solve,” Lee said in Cantonese.
He added that members of the community are “very welcome to join in on the monitoring system.” Details of the system will be announced at a later stage, the leader said.
First ‘patriots-only’ race
Plans to overhaul the District Council elections were unveiled in May 2023 to ensure only “patriots” were elected, following a pro-democracy landslide at the last polls in 2019.
The number of seats chosen democratically by the public were slashed from 452 to 88 – reducing the power of public votes to a fifth. The rest are to be chosen by the city’s leader and government-appointed committees.
Constituency boundaries were redrawn, the opposition were shut out, voting hours were slashed by an hour, and each local council is to be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.
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