New-look Legco bodes ill for government
Joseph Wong says with disunity even among pro-establishment forces in the new Legco, plus the rise of radicals, the government will have a tough time pushing through its policies
It may be easy to conclude from the outcome of the Legislative Council election that the pro-establishment forces have been strengthened. A staunch supporter of the government, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, is the biggest winner in the election, taking a total of 13 seats, with nine in the geographical constituencies, while the Democratic Party won only four directly elected seats, compared with seven in 2008.
Although the pan-democrats secured over 55 per cent of the popular vote, they managed to get only 18 seats in the expanded 35-seat geographical constituencies. This disproportionate outcome is mainly due to the success of the disciplined vote-splitting strategy perfected by the DAB in this election. For example, each of its two candidate-lists in Hong Kong Island and three lists in the New Territories West got enough votes to win a seat.
In contrast, the Civil Party's strategy, adopted to good effect in the last election, was to put the popular candidate as No 2 on two lists. This time, the strategy failed to win the second seat for Tanya Chan and Audrey Eu Yuet-mee under the largest remainder formula.
The apparent setback of the pan-democrats in the geographical constituency election deserves closer examination. There is no doubt many Democratic Party supporters were disappointed with its past performance, and this had an impact on the dynamics of the pandemocrat camp. For example, Gary Fan Kwok-wai, who left the Democrats to set up the NeoDemocrats, won the last seat in New Territories East, while the incumbent Democratic Party member, Wong Sing-chi, lost by a wide margin.
The People Power party, led by Wong Yuk-man, almost succeeded in doubling its number of seats to four. While its first-time candidate Wong Yeung-tat lost the last seat by fewer than 2,000 votes, another member, Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, won comfortably in New Territories East, getting more votes than, say, the Civic Party's Ronny Tong Ka-wah.
In the same district, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats received the most votes of any candidate in that constituency. Combined, these two radical democrat groups received more votes than the Democratic Party in the geographical constituencies.
Although many voters deserted the Democratic Party and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) in the geographical constituency election, even taking away the ADPL's one seat in Kowloon West, they were rational enough to support their three lacklustre candidates in the District Council (second) functional constituency election.