Pan-democrats election setbacks blamed on infighting

Despite the addition of five new geographical constituency seats in the legislature, pan-democrats still managed to win one seat fewer than in the 2008 poll.

And while they won a 56.6 per cent share of the popular vote on Sunday, that translated into only 51 per cent of the directly elected seats, or 18 out of 35.

Analysts attributed the pan-democrats' setbacks to the intense infighting within the camp. This was seen in their lack of co-ordination in fielding candidates, leading in part to a failure to split the votes effectively among their candidate lists.

Political scientists cited the Civic Party's "over-ambitious" strategy as well as pan-democratic infighting - notably People Power's attack on the Democratic Party and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood for supporting the 2010 electoral reforms.

The pan-democrats' share of the geographical constituency vote dipped by 1.5 percentage points from 2008, meaning the usual 60/40 split between pan-democrats and the Beijing-loyalist camp did not hold.

The margin between the two camps was especially narrow in the five new "super seats" in the functional constituency for district councils. The three pan-democratic slates gained 50.7 per cent of the 1.59 million votes cast, while Lau Kong-wah, his allies on two Beijing-loyalist slates and independent Pamela Peck Wan-kam took 49.3 per cent.

"The pan-democrats should no longer hope for the 60/40 split. They should review their strategy instead," said political pundit Dr James Sung Lap-kung, of City University's School of Continuing and Professional Education.