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Hong Kong district council election
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Occupy and Hong Kong youth take toll on pro-Beijing parties' share of vote

After the last two district council elections, pro-establishment leaders celebrated joyously. But yesterday they described the results only as "okay" or even "disappointing".

Hit by the rising influence of young voters and last year's Occupy movement, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the city's biggest political force in the city, won 119 seats.

Four years ago, they won 136 seats but this was when Federation of Trade Union members were concurrently DAB members. This time, the FTU candidates stood on their own.

DAB chairwoman Starry Lee Wai-king insisted the DAB's number of seats "remained unchanged".

In a statement, the party argued that the DAB's elected councillors had declined to 120 over the last four years, and one of them had decided not to run as a DAB member come election time. So the party only had 119 district councillors before the election, it said.

But it turned out two of the 119 still had dual membership with the FTU.

Numbers aside, the DAB faced the unexpected loss of two prominent district councillors, Christopher Chung Shu-kun and Elizabeth Quat, who are also lawmakers.

The pair's defeat raises questions about whether the party can keep its nine directly-elected seats in the Legco polls next year.

The FTU, the second biggest force in the district councils, also failed to increase their influence, keeping their number of seats steady at 29.

The New People's Party, which had 31 seats before the election, only kept 26 seats.

The party's chairwoman Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said the impact of a changing political climate was clear in middle class constituencies.

"The political atmosphere was different. Many middle class residents did not vote in the past, but they cast their ballots because they are not satisfied with certain social phenomena … If they don't like the government, then they won't like the parties they see as pro-government," Ip said.

The district council elections on Sunday were the first polls since the end of the 79-day Occupy movement last December. At least seven poll winners said they had been inspired by the protest movement, including Clarisse Yeung Suet-ying, who defeated NPP candidate Gigi Wong Ching-chi in Wan Chai.

Lee also said the political climate had affected both her camp and her rival's. "There were those who voted because they oppose Occupy ... but there were also people who voted because they supported the movement."

But the Kowloon City district councillor insisted the DAB did "okay", and that their number of seats "remain unchanged".

The DAB garnered a total of 309,262 votes on Sunday, which accounted for about 21 per cent of the vote share - down 2 percentage points on four years ago.

The Liberal Party, which had 10 elected councillors and two appointees before the election, only managed to win nine seats. Only five out of nine candidates from the party standing on Hong Kong Island emerged winners.

Felix Chung Kwok-pan, chairman of the Liberals, told the he believed the "unexpected results" meant all pro-establishment parties would be adjusting their plans for the Legco elections in September.

"The political landscape seems to have changed a little, the essence has changed," he said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Occupy and the youth take toll on pro-Beijing parties
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