Anti-establishment voices win seats in Arts Development Council election

A record turnout for the Hong Kong Arts Development Council election on Tuesday returned an overwhelmingly anti-CY Leung body of elected members, a reflection of the low popularity of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying among the local arts community.

This has prompted suggestions that a new era of reform has begun at the powerful, grants-giving body with a budget of more than HK$150 million and that the outcome could lower the chance of Leung’s re-election as the next chief executive. But some of the victors are quick to point out that democratisation of the council began a few years ago and that they do not see the ADC poll as a proxy for next month’s chief executive nomination committee subsector election.

The ADC said 2,456 turned out for this ballot, a record 41.9 per cent of registered voters and an 8 per cent increase from 2013. There is little doubt that the result is a win for anti-establishment voices in the arts community.

In the music sector, the winner Adrian Chow Pok-yin is nicknamed the “Long Hair” of the music industry. He tried, without success, to unseat pro-Beijing Ma Fung-kwok as the legislative councillor for the sports, performing arts, culture and publication sector earlier this year.

Best-known for writing songs about social issues, Chow’s views on Leung are well-known. His last Facebook post before the results came out was about Umbrella film A Sunny Day winning a Golden Horse award, and the fact that six, eight and nine (a reference to the 689 votes that made Leung chief executive) did not come up in Saturday’s Mark Six draw. He thought both were good omens.