Several pro-independence candidates won seats in Hong Kong’s legislative election in the Chinese-controlled city on Sunday.
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Beijing underscored its “resolute opposition” to any form of “Hong Kong independence” activities, either within or outside of the special administrative region’s Legislative Council, an official statement said on Monday.
“I think Hong Kongers wanted real change”, Law, 23, said.
Before nomination for the election, Hong Kong’s Electoral Affairs Commission demanded that all the candidates must endorse a statement promising to support the Hong Kong Basic Law and be loyal to the Hong Kong SAR.
That represents a break with the established mainstream “pan-democrat” parties, who have demanded voters be able to elect more lawmakers as well as the city’s top leader, or chief executive now chosen by a panel of pro-Beijing elites but never challenged the idea that Hong Kong is part of China. It said Hong Kong independence is contrary to China’s Constitution, harms national sovereignty and security, and will harm Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.
The Legislative Council – or the LegCo – election were the biggest polls held after the 2014’s mass protests calling for greater autonomy from China.
However, a different poll in the same month found nearly 40 percent of young Hong Kong residents want independence.
University student Law rose to prominence during the 2014 rallies, delivering speeches to tens of thousands who protested on the streets and meeting government officials in what were ultimately fruitless negotiations. I believe that every single person who voted for me made that history. The city is ruled under a “one country two systems” deal that protects its freedoms. He has said he does not want Hong Kong to become “just another Chinese city”.
More than two million people, or 58 percent of registered voters, cast their ballots in Sunday’s elections, the highest turnout in any legislative elections since Britain returned control of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
On Saturday (September 3) as part of TaiwanFest, Taiwanese journalist Tieh-chih Chang told a Vancouver audience that this Hong Kong election was particularly important.
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.
Another rookie, 38-year-old land reform campaigner Eddie Chu, won 84,121 votes, the highest number of votes garnered by any of the more than 200 candidates competing for 35 seats in geographic constituencies.
Eddie Chu, a 38-year-old environmental activist, whose unexpected landslide election in New Territories West was the story of the night, told reporters Monday that Hong Kongers have chosen “democratic self-determination”. She said she felt “much more emotionally involved this time” after the 2014 protests known as the “Umbrella Movement”.
That compares with 53 percent in the last LegCo elections in 2012.
Law claimed that he had not expected to win any seat, and said that he chose to participate in the election just to see the people’s respond towards the Umbrella Movement.
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That includes candidate Elizabeth Quat, who says she hopes the incoming legislators prove ineffectual.
