Out with the old: Two big-name pan-democrats ousted in tight district council election races
But losses by Albert Ho and Frederick Fung don’t significantly alter proportion of seats held by pro-democracy and pro-government camps
A pair of pro-democracy heavyweights were marginally unseated in a District Council poll generating a record turnout rate of 47 per cent and the emergence of fresh faces, some of them inspired by the Occupy protests.
The election results did not pose a significant change to the proportion between the pro-democracy and pro-government camps, as the latter continued to enjoy a numerical edge despite a drop in the number of seats compared to the last election.
But some newly elected politicians illustrated the continuing support behind last year’s Occupy protests in an election that had a higher turnout rate than the record 44 per cent set in 2003 after a 500,000-strong anti-government protest that year.
READ MORE: Record numbers vote at Hong Kong’s district council elections; two pan-democratic big guns defeated and three new pro-Occupy candidates win seats
Two of at least four successfully elected “Umbrella soldiers” remarkably defeated pro-establishment heavyweights such as lawmaker Christopher Chung Shu-kun, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, and Kowloon City district council chairman Lau Wai-wing.