Five people were yesterday arrested as polls opened in Hong Kong’s first “patriots only” district council election, with officials dismissing concerns of potentially low turnout in a race that has shut out all opposition candidates after a national security crackdown.
The previous election was held at the peak of the territory’s huge, sometimes violent, democracy protests in 2019, and recorded a historic-high 71 percent turnout — delivering a landslide victory for the pro-democracy camp. As part of the widespread clampdown on political opposition — aided by national security legislation imposed by Beijing in 2020 — Hong Kong authorities overhauled the councils’ composition earlier this year.
Authorities have attempted to drum up enthusiasm for the election, covering the city with posters urging Hong Kongers to participate, but yesterday morning, polling booths appeared to have few voters in the wealthy Mid-Levels area.
Photo: AFP
“It must be the patriots ruling Hong Kong — this is our principle,” said a civil engineer surnamed Lee, a lone early voter, adding that “the election wouldn’t be affected just because some can’t be part of it.”
Under new rules announced in May, seats for direct election were slashed from 462 to 88, with the other 382 seats controlled by Hong Kong’s leader, government loyalists and rural landlords.
Candidates were required to seek nominations from committees appointed by the government, which effectively shut out all pro-democracy parties. More than 70 percent of the candidates nominated to run for directly elected seats were members of those committees.
“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,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) said after he cast his ballot yesterday.
Five people were arrested yesterday, including three activists and a couple, one of whom worked for the government.
The League of Social Democrats — one of the territory’s last remaining opposition groups — said it planned to stage a protest and that three of its members were followed from home and arrested by police in the city’s Central District.
Police said the trio were “attempting to incite others to disrupt district council elections.”
Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption said it had arrested a couple for allegedly “leaving a comment” on a social media post that incited people to cast invalid ballots.
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