Hong Kong leader John Lee has praised the 27.5% voter turnout in the city’s weekend election, a record low since the territory returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Sunday’s district council election was the first held under new rules introduced under Beijing’s direction that effectively shut out all pro-democracy candidates.
Sunday’s turnout was significantly less than the record 71.2% of Hong Kong’s 4.3 million registered voters who participated in the last election, held at the height of anti-government protests in 2019, which the pro-democracy camp won by a landslide.
Lee said there was resistance to Sunday’s election from prospective candidates who were rejected under the new rules for being not qualified or lacking the principles of “patriots” administering Hong Kong.
“The de facto boycott indicates low public acceptance of the new electoral arrangement and its democratic representativeness,” Dominic Chiu, senior analyst at research firm Eurasia Group, wrote in a note.
Chiu said the low turnout represents a silent protest against the shrinking of civil liberties in the city following Beijing’s imposition of a tough national security law that makes it difficult to express opposition.
“Against this backdrop, the public took the elections as a rare opportunity to make their opposition to the new normal known — by not turning up to vote,” he said.
The original article contains 428 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sunday’s district council election was the first held under new rules introduced under Beijing’s direction that effectively shut out all pro-democracy candidates.
Sunday’s turnout was significantly less than the record 71.2% of Hong Kong’s 4.3 million registered voters who participated in the last election, held at the height of anti-government protests in 2019, which the pro-democracy camp won by a landslide.
Lee said there was resistance to Sunday’s election from prospective candidates who were rejected under the new rules for being not qualified or lacking the principles of “patriots” administering Hong Kong.
“The de facto boycott indicates low public acceptance of the new electoral arrangement and its democratic representativeness,” Dominic Chiu, senior analyst at research firm Eurasia Group, wrote in a note.
Chiu said the low turnout represents a silent protest against the shrinking of civil liberties in the city following Beijing’s imposition of a tough national security law that makes it difficult to express opposition.
“Against this backdrop, the public took the elections as a rare opportunity to make their opposition to the new normal known — by not turning up to vote,” he said.
The original article contains 428 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!