Results from a Sunday poll to elect a fresh slate of lawmakers for Hong Kong’s 70-member Legislative Council showed wins by a student leader from the 2014 Occupy protests- where thousands of citizens seeking greater autonomy blocked streets for 79 days-as well as other advocates of a more independently governed Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Raymond Tam said the government would do its best to “bring them around to a more centrist position”.
“I’m quite shocked”, Law, of the recently founded Demosisto party, said.
He said the support at the ballot box would remind him “not to let people down” during his four-year term as lawmaker. And Eddie Chu, a 38- year-old social activist, claimed victory with 84,000 votes. “Pan-democrat” lawmakers now control 27 of 70 seats, compared with 43 held by lawmakers friendly to Beijing.
Legislature operates within a partially democratic system.
“I think it is a miracle”, he told reporters.
Several veteran democrats failed to retain their seats on Sunday, as voters backed a new batch of younger democrats espousing self-determination and a more confrontational stance with China.
Will these results change anything?
The most high-profile was the disappearance of five city booksellers known for salacious titles about Beijing politicians.
The pro-democracy alliance of political parties is set to retain veto power in the Legco. “He had no hope of counteracting this emergence of separatist sentiment among the younger generation”.
Leung’s administration, reportedly at Beijing’s behest, disbarred six candidates in the recent LegCo elections, citing their “pro-independence” views. Teachers in the city can lose their qualifications if they push for independence in the classroom.
One of the men, Lee Bo, is thought to have been spirited away from a Hong Kong warehouse and smuggled across the border to the Chinese mainland – an act widely considered a violation of “one country, two systems”.
But pro-government candidates did not do as well as they did in the previous elections for Legco in 2012.
Results as of 5:30am local time showed victories for some young “localist” activists who are pushing for more distance or complete independence from China.
Another Youngspiration candidate, Baggio Leung, who has openly supported independence, also took a seat. “It might take some time for these new faces to learn the tactics”, he said. They called for full democracy, universal suffrage and the protection of their way of life. “People are voting for a new way and new future of our democratic movement”.
Choi said. “The pan-democrats are beginning to be divided, and it’s getting harder and harder to unite these disparate political forces”.
On Friday, the company said it knew of 35 cases in which batteries had issues and had even exploded, and that the company was stopping sales of the phone immediately.
All three had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment.
But last week, a Department of Justice spokesman said the government has asked the Eastern Court presiding magistrate to review the punishment, which it judged too lenient.
The vote, which ushered in a new crop of legislators including a 23-year-old former protest leader who vowed to “fight” the Chinese Communist Party, underscores growing frustration with how Beijing has handled its “special administrative region” and marks a significant turning point.
Mr. Law was a leader of the 2014 pro-democracy street protests that brought the city’s business district to a standstill for 75 days almost two years ago.
Reported by Hai Nan and Lam Kwok-lap for RFA’s Cantonese Service.Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
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Leaders of the 79-day civil disobedience movement rejected the August 31, 2014 decree by the National People’s Congress (NPC) as “fake universal suffrage”.
