Hong Kong goes to polls amid grave warnings over city's freedoms

2016-09-04

A campaigner (C) stands behind a placard of Baggio Leung, 30, one of three candidates from new party Youngspiration, during the Legislative Council election in Hong Kong on Sept. 4, 2016. AFP

Hong Kong voters stood in long lines to cast their ballot in legislative elections on Sunday, the first since the 2014 pro-democracy movement, amid growing tensions over the erosion of the city's traditional freedoms.

With six pro-independence candidates already disqualified from the race, reportedly at Beijing's behest, candidates were divided along largely pro-Beijing and pan-democratic lines, while some younger, more radical voices have emerged since the student-led campaign for universal suffrage fell on deaf ears.

The pro-democracy "Umbrella Movement," that drew hundreds of thousands onto the city's streets at its height, underscored fears that the city was already losing the autonomy promised to it by Beijing under the terms of the 1997 handover agreement.

Former colonial-era second-in-command Anson Chan said the stakes for Hong Kong "have never been higher."

"In the four years since the last Legislative Council elections, our way of life ... has faced unprecedented challenges in the form of a systematic undermining of our core values and freedoms," Chan told a meeting of foreign journalists ahead of Sunday's election.

Chan cited a series of recent assaults on freedom of the press, including the firing of outspoken political commentators, physical violence directed at journalists, and the detention by Chinese authorities of five booksellers accused of selling "banned books" to customers across the internal border in mainland China.

"The really scary thing is that these developments are now coming so thick and fast, they no longer even seem to cause surprise," Chan said.

"Not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable that our head of government would actually tell us what we and our children are allowed to talk about," she said, hitting out at a recent ban on the discussion of independence in the city's schools.

"If we as a community start to regard as normal downright dishonesty and lack of accountability on the part of government officials, then we are in real danger."

She warned Hong Kong's seven million residents not to become accustomed to "a new normal" when key institutions like the University of Hong Kong, the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Department of Justice to become "blatantly politicized."

Reuters reported on Sunday that the barring of the six candidates was directly at the instigation of ruling Chinese Communist Party officials, who were "displeased" that more weren't eliminated from the race.

Told how to vote by China

It also quoted sources as saying that Hong Kong employees of Chinese state-owned enterprises China Resources Land and Bank of China (Hong Kong) as well as Hong Kong-listed South China Holdings had been told how to vote in Sunday's elections by their bosses.

A staff member at Bank of China (Hong Kong), which employs 15,000 people in Hong Kong, showed Reuters a list with names of pro-Beijing candidates handed out by the firm, and said employees were told to call their managers after voting, the agency reported.

Hong Kong's pan-democratic camp needs to win more than one-third of seats in the 70-seat Legislative Council (LegCo) in order to wield a veto over crucial legislation, including any constitutional changes and draconian national security laws.

The emergence of pro-independence voices has been relatively recent on Hong Kong's political scene, leading critics to accuse embattled chief executive Leung Chun-ying of encouraging the movement by harping on Beijing's anti-independence theme.

Baggio Leung, a candidate for the localist youth group Youngspiration that embraces Hong Kong's traditional autonomy, freedoms and unique culture, said the race was too close to call in some electoral districts.

"In the New Territories East, there is just a five percent gap between candidates in 2nd through to 15th place, and the polls are running very close," he said.

Each of the five electoral districts returns more than one lawmaker, using a proportional representation voting system that yields 30 directly elected seats, while 35 are voted in by industry and professional groups, mostly by a limited "selectorate."

Localists urge high turnout

"We can only do our best. I don't think that the voters of New Territories East are likely to have changed their minds in six months," Leung said, in response to the by-election defeat last February of localist Edward Leung, now one of the candidates barred by election officials for pro-independence views.

Edward Leung, who came third in the by-election with more than 66,000 votes, said the main priority for the localists is to win at least one seat in LegCo at this election.

He dismissed concerns about differences within the localist camp on the independence issue.

"The electorate is quite capable of distinguishing between the localist movement's advocacy of "self-determination" and support for independence," he said.

Meanwhile, former Occupy Central student leader Nathan Law, who is running for he newly formed Demosisto Party, called on voters to turn out to vote for pan-democratic candidates.

"If we are to have all three Hong Kong Island seats returned as pan-democratic, the first thing we have to achieve is a high voter turnout," Law said.

"All three Hong Kong Island seats are crucial for the pan-democrats," he said.

Veteran Hong Kong movie actress and Cantopop star Deanie Ip said Law was an inspiration.

"I believe that this young man does everything he does for Hong Kong, and for his generation," Ip said.

"Nowadays it seems that if you speak out, that makes you a bad person, and I have a problem with that," she said.

"You may not care what I think as a celebrity or as a mother, but I am just a person trying to do what I think is the right thing."

Pan-democratic lawmaker Albert Ho has warned that the government, urged on by Beijing, may find it easier to force through unpopular legislation if the pan-democrats don't make a strong enough showing in Sunday's election.

"They can change the electoral system," he told Reuters. "And it will be easier to force through legislation at the will of the government."

But pro-Beijing parties said they are focusing more on social and economic issues, with the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), playing down suggestions that China has been interfering in Hong Kong's political affairs.

Meanwhile, pro-democracy activist Avery Ng defended his actions after he threw a sandwich at the city's leader, Leung Chun-ying, in protest at Beijing's behind-the-scenes influence.

Ng, who heads the Social Democratic Party in China, a pro-democracy group, was restrained by police after Leung dodged the sandwich.

"We are in the progressive faction, and we use such actions to express opposition and protest," Ng told RFA after the incident. "It is no longer possible to hold a free debate in Hong Kong, so we need to protest about that."

"We are standing up to Leung Chun-ying because he is the puppet of the Beijing government," he said.

Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Link to original story on RFA website