2014’s pro-democracy protests may have ended without any significant results but they have certainly played a decisive role in the LegCo election, which, in turn, confirms that Hong Kong wants change.
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Final results showed pro-democracy candidates won 30 of 70 seats in the Legislative Council.
“This is absolutely unexpected – nobody imagined this would happen”, he said after results were announced.
Citizens of this former British colony elected to legislature a bevy of candidates from new parties calling for more autonomy from the mainland, including several veterans of the massive pro-democracy street protests that rocked the city two years ago.
“I think the central message is very clear”, said Dixon Sing, a political analyst at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
These protests were unsuccessful: the old ferry piers were torn down, and the Rail Link is being built-confirming in the mind of many Hong Kong people that the current government is simply unwilling to listen. “Young people have a sense of urgency when it comes to the future”.
With the pro-democracy camp divided between those who back the idea of possible independence and those who are more wary of the once taboo notion, Mr Law said he would seek unity.
The pro-establishment Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong was the biggest party victor with seven seats in the geographical constituencies.
Pro-Beijing supporters have been accused of offering financial incentives to potential supporters and bringing in busloads of former Hong Kong residents living in China to vote in the election.
Law’s party, Demosisto, founded earlier this year with teen protest leader Joshua Wong, advocates a referendum on “self-determination” on the future status of Hong Kong, which is in the middle of a 50-year transition period to Chinese rule.
In a statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency, China’s top body for Hong Kong affairs underscored Beijing’s “resolute opposition” to Hong Kong independence and encouraged the local government to “mete out penalties according to law” for those who advocate it.
“It can be described as a miracle that I won”, the South China Morning Post quoted Nathan Law Kwun-chung as saying.
The election for the sixth-term LegCo of the Hong Kong SAR was held on Sunday.
Among its policies is even the proposal that Hong Kong must seek independent water and food supplies to reduce dependency on mainland China.
Law is a member of the Demosistō Party, which was set up by student leaders of the protest. But only 35 constituency seats are directly elected by the 3.8 million registered voters.
Candidates were in the race for 70 seats on the LegCo, whose function is to pass laws and budgets in the territory.
If the democrats lose just four seats overall, they will forfeit the one-third voting bloc they need to veto bills, stacking the already skewed legislature even more in favour of Beijing.
However, 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.
A record 2.2 million people, or 58 per cent of the electorate, came out to vote in the most critical legislative polls since the handover – the highest turnout since direct elections were first introduced in 1991.
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At stake is the power to keep Hong Kong’s widely unpopular Beijing-backed chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, and his government in check.
