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Legislative Council elections 2016
Hong KongPolitics

Hong Kong Legislative Council polls: voters change the city’s political landscape

Hongkongers choose a new breed of localists and younger faces for the Legislative Council, taking politics and governance of the city into uncharted waters

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Social and political activist Eddie Chu hugs his wife after becoming the ‘king of votes’, polling some 84,000. Photo: Felix Wong
Stuart LauandGary Cheung

Hong Kong’s voters have signalled a strong demand for political change and a say in the city’s future, installing in the legislature a new generation of activists who cut their teeth on the 2014 Occupy protests, and sidelining veteran pan-democrats who disappointed them.

As the results of Sunday’s Legislative Council elections, some of them down to wire, were announced on Monday, it was clear that a more fractured legislature, with new faces raring to challenge the old order, was ready to shape the next four years of politics.

Six localists were among those voted into office in the first general election since the mass protests of two years ago.

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A record 2.2 million people, or 58 per cent of the electorate, came out to vote in the most critical legislative polls since the handover – the highest turnout since direct elections were first introduced in 1991.

The biggest winner was social and political activist Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, crowned the “king of votes” with 84,000.

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