The answer to Friday’s question is ‘yes’ – by a whisker, with the ‘election’ turnout (in geographical constituencies) hitting a just, barely, too-pitiful-to-be-fake 30.2%. Sighs of relief in government circles that the figure wasn’t 20-something, but still ‘hugely embarrassing’. Thank heavens for those 17,000 voters living across the border.
However, if you exclude invalid/spoiled ballots, it apparently comes to 29.6%.
The low turnout was because of evil foreign forces stopping citizens from voting, right? But no – it was because of the free bus rides that were designed to encourage people to go to the polling stations. Or maybe it was because of a reluctance to lend legitimacy to a rigged process, or because there were no candidates for most of the public to vote for.
The ballot in most two-seat GCs comprised one DAB candidate, one from the FTU (or other Beijing loyalist group), plus a designated loser to make it look like there was a competition of some sort. Needless to say, the latter ‘non-establishment’ people all lost. This pattern looks to have been repeated in the functional constituencies. FCs with broad electorates (teachers, medics, lawyers, etc) showed clear signs of a boycott by pan-dem voters (more here).
That leaves the Election Committee, in which 1,500 (mostly) Beijing loyalists elect 40 of the 90 seats in the new all-patriots Legislative Council. The authorities deny suggestions that Beijing circulated a list of preferred candidates, but this segment of LegCo members is obviously designed to be hand-pickable, and with only 51 candidates to fill 40 seats, it would be easy to arrange a specific outcome. Winners included former members from the now-reduced GCs (Priscilla Leung, Elizabeth Quat, Junius Ho, etc). Among the losers were the two token whites, Allen Zeman and Mike Rowse.
In short, multiple layers of rigging and micromanagement produce a 100% pure rubber-stamp LegCo.
The word now is that Beijing will issue a ‘white paper’ imminently. That of 2014 emphasized ‘comprehensive jurisdiction’ – that Hong Kong was Beijing’s to treat any way it wished, with no rights of its own. A second one might in theory discuss some sort of further constitutional ‘improvements’ to build on the patriots-only ‘election’ system. Probably not worth losing any sleep over. Like the question of whether Carrie Lam gets a second term.
(Update: white paper here – just a massive 57-page Word doc press release justifying rigged elections.)
Among snippets from Twitter: Pan-dem/protest imagery on pro-Beijing/voting banners; some of many photos comparing yesterday’s turnout with the lines outside polling stations in 2019; at mid-afternoon, pro-Beijing workers are knocking on doors in a Tsuen Wan estate trying to get people to turn out; even Beijing’s loyalists were frustrated at the lack of voters; and ‘19.15: In Taipo, campaigner Wong Shing-chi is talking to thin air as it gets cold and dark’. (With tragic photo.)
After decades of trying, does Nury Vittachi finally manage to be funny in this vid on the frenzied excitement of election day? Or is he trying too hard – as if desperate to please someone who might turn nasty without warning? Supercilious or petrified? Either way, you know that he knows he’s talking crap.
Among SCMP’s rolling updates, tycoon Charles Ho lashes out at Carrie Lam (scroll down), and this…
Post reporters stationed at polling centres in Sham Shui Po, Tai Kok Tsui, Kennedy Town and Yau Ma Tei throughout the day have observed that voters have been mostly elderly or middle-aged, with very few young people coming out to cast their ballot.
Absolutely! Passing my local polling station this morning made me feel sprightly and lithe again. Though the pro-Beijing workers picking up elderly voters in buses missed one.
Some last-minute commentary on the quasi-elections…
Johnny Patterson : “These sham elections are a farce. The Communist Party in Beijing decided that an easy way of winning the election would be to lock up the entire opposition and rig the rules. This is not a democratic vote, it is a propaganda exercise which has no legitimacy.”
After banning, putting behind bars, and forcing pro-democracy candidates into exile, there is – for the first time – no genuine competition in the LegCo elections.
In classic doublespeak, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam – who owes her own political rise to profoundly undemocratic processes – praised the “overhaul” of the LegCo electoral system for enabling “broad representation” and “political inclusion.”
The Diplomat…
Chief Executive Carrie Lam and her cabinet cannot convince Hong Kongers that taking away their right to nominate LegCo candidates is an “improvement.”
Sooo….out of the 30% turnout, will there be actual revelations on how many of those ballots were blank/scribbled/doodled/shat on?? Or will it be resolutely reported that they were all filled out appropriately?
I did my civic duty and voted, like the good citizen that I am. However, I found myself overcome by just how excellent my four candidates were and simply couldn’t decide between them, so I voted for them all. More is better and more patriotic, right?
When you factor in invalid votes, turnout/government support is about 29.54%
I note that the 57-pager update link started with “Under British colonial rule, there was no democracy in Hong Kong, [China’s State Council Information Office] said.”
I seem to remember that the first thing Beijing did when it took Hong Kong back on 1 July 1997 was to ditch Hong Kong’s first ever and only ever LegCo fully elected by universal suffrage and appoint its own.
Didn’t someone famous in China once say “Seek truth from the facts”?…
Nury Vittachi…. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Abject self-inflicted humiliation.
@Mark Bradley – then deduct more for the votes that went to semi-democrats, and hardcore government support looks even weaker.
Did Nury’s little encomium remind anyone of the Radio 4 series “Just a Minute”?
Presenter: Paul Merton you have one minute on how dinosaur excrement is important in our daily life.
Paul Merton: Tough one, what’s Nury got?
Presenter: Well Paul, Nury’s got one minute on why the the recent Hong Kong election is great.
Paul Merton: Ok, I’ll stick.
The CCP was going to get that number over 30% by hook or by crook. I believe the 30.2% figure about as much as I believe the CCP’s GDP figures & Covid stats.
That Nuri bit was hard to watch. He’s lucky to have had his mask on during that exercise of self abasement and proving the phrase “useful idiot”. Wonder if he took a 30 minute scalding hot shower afterwards and had a long look in the mirror?
Good boy Nuri (pat on the bald coconut)…here’s your permanent residency card back.
On Friday a mate started sending me their karaoke covers of ‘Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies’ by Beyond… somehow he didnt make it to the polling station…
I was wrong. The commies did not hack the polling computers…
They got something much nicer ins store – for all eventualities.
Another White Book on Hong Kong-style Democracy.
57 pages of comprehensive new gobbledygook.
Took a peek, and will immediately order a comprehensively leather bound copy. My piano is still not properly supported in three corners and it will make a fitting counterbalance to the two corners standing on Xi Jinping comprehensive Governance of China comprehensive Volumes I and II.
As for Nuri: Let’s just remember that he wrote a whiny-rambling book called “North Wind” after he got the sack from the SCMP. Looks like he got swept away by the wind from the North.
Re: Nury Shoe-shiny, What does “editor of a #HongKong-based website” actual mean? Which website? He looks like he has become deranged.
“The voter turnout of 30.2 percent for a new electoral system is highly respectable and reflects considerable confidence in the new system,” the Vaginal Itch said.
The Itch, I suspect, will be in for a very rude shock if she resigns to take part in the CE election. I suspect she plans that in the event of the failure of her bid, the resultant bye-election for her Legco seat will not have been held and she can stand again. In which case I hope the HK Island West voters will give her a massive Fuck Off.
Allan Zeman, the father of LKF, (actually Gordon Huthart was the father of LKF. He founded Disco Disco) got a big kick up the sagging ass. As did sad, putrid left-over Mike Rowse.
The Xmas holidays are right in front of us. If you are planning to go out, get rid of the COVID blues and the LegCo disaster, I advise you to go to anywhere but Lan Kwai Fong, home of China hookers and African drug dealers. There are many other places in Central where you can spend your hard-earned dollars: Peel Street (mind the rolling cars), Wyndham Street, Soho and all the way to Sai Ying Pun. There is great fun to be had everywhere.
With other words: BOYCOTT LAN KWAI FONG
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-issues-joint-statement-with-international-partners-on-hong-kong-elections-20-december-2021
@Freddie
Nice words from the foreign secretaries. That’ll show ’em.
@Mark Bradley
“When you factor in invalid votes, turnout/government support is about 29.54%”
@Low Profile
“then deduct more for the votes that went to semi-democrats, and hardcore government support looks even weaker.”
Whoa chaps, you are both being much too generous.
There are plenty of folk with sensible views, even strongly pro-dem, who through a different logic chose to vote. Have to deduct them from the 29%. (A friend of mine just posted her rationale for voting while detesting the bowdlerised process).