“I think Hong Kongers really wanted change”, Law said, celebrating his win.
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Hong Kong has been the scene of increasingly bitter political turmoil since the last legislative election in 2012.
Hong Kong is on tenterhooks Monday morning after pivotal elections for the city’s parliament saw record turnout numbers and lines stretching around the block.
There will also be more radical voices in the LegCo, with at least six young candidates who support self-determination for Hong Kong occupying seats.
Over 50 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, with the results due early on Monday.
Thirty five seats out of Hong Kong’s 70-member Legislative Council were directly elected, with 30 other chosen by people connected to certain business and professional groups who account for only 6 percent of the population, earning Hong Kong the title of partial democracy.
The overall make-up of the LegCo remains weighted towards Beijing under a system that makes it nearly impossible for the democracy camp to take a majority.
The Legislative Council has 70 members, with 35 returned by geographical constituencies through direct elections, and the other 35 by functional constituencies. Some were anxious that the pan-democratic camp – which held 27 seats to the pro-Beijing camp’s 43 – would lose seats in the election, granting the pro-Beijing camp the two-thirds majority necessary to pass its agenda through the legislature.
“I just hope that people can sit down and talk without going radical”, said a 72-year-old voter surnamed Yau, who added regular weekend protests have made him anxious about where to take his grandchildren.
Entrenched divisions have led to a Legislative Council often hamstrung by filibustering and point-scoring.
Before Sunday’s vote, six candidates were disqualified for their deemed pro-independence stances after a new Electoral Affairs Commission ruling requiring those running to sign a document accepting Hong Kong as “an inalienable part of China”.
Preliminary results suggest that a younger generation of more radical, pro-democracy politicians won a larger-than-expected share of votes, potentially rattling nerves in Beijing.
The council has the power to enact, amend and repeal laws; endorse the appointment and removal of judges; and impeach the city’s top official, the chief executive.
The youngest candidate Nathan Law, 23, came in second to pro-Beijing incumbent Regina Ip, with a surprising high number of votes.
The proposed law will grant all residents the right to vote for the chief executive in 2017 for the first time, but it also inserts a clause that candidates must be vetted by a loyalist committee.
“The democracy in the election is reflected by the free choice of voters, they do not need to be told who to vote”, he said, when asked his thoughts on how last-minute decisions by seven mostly pro-democracy candidates to suspend their campaigns in a bid to consolidate votes for those with more support would affect results.
The 2014 protests, which involved more than 100,000 people at their peak as people were angered by what was widely seen as excessive use of by police, were sparked by opposition to a Beijing-backed election reform package. Including Youngspirations’ Sixtus Baggio Leung, who was endorsed by pro-independence activist Edward Leung.
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A total of 595 polling stations have been opened on the polling day across Hong Kong, including 571 ordinary polling stations and 24 dedicated polling stations.
