The dust has still to settle from the fight to choose the city's next leader, but already the battle lines for September's Legislative Council elections are being redrawn. Leung Chun-ying's victory in the chief executive election left the pro-establishment camp bitterly divided. And that could benefit candidates of the pan-democratic camp, some analysts say.
The divisions the just-concluded election caused between Leung's supporters and those of his rival, former chief secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen, and the fact there will be an extra 10 seats in Legco to fight over mean the legislative polls will be more fiercely contested than in previous years, several analysts say.
And some see the pan-democrats benefiting, likening them to the dog that runs away with a bone being fought over by two others.
'The fiercer the infighting in the pro-establishment camp, the more likely the pan-democrats will benefit,' said City University political scientist Dr James Sung Lap-kung. 'The central government's liaison office will not want to see further divisions in the camp.'
In last month's mock chief executive election, held by the University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme, a whopping 54.6 per cent of 222,990 voters cast blank ballots in a show of anger at the nature of the March 25 poll - decided by the 1,193-strong Election Committee, made up largely of the city's business and political elite.
Of the three candidates for chief executive, Leung emerged with 17.8 per cent of the votes in the mock vote, which was held from March 23 to 24, narrowly beating Tang on 16.3 per cent and pan-democrat Albert Ho Chun-yan on 11.4 per cent.
In the real election, Leung won 689 votes, or 60.9 per cent of the 1,132 votes cast - the lowest share of the vote yet seen for a winning chief executive, albeit he won outright in the first round. Tang had 285 votes and Ho 76.