The democrats' landslide victory in the District Council elections was a big surprise to those in political circles and to media pundits, myself included. Analysts quickly concluded that if the pro-Beijing candidates could suffer such a big defeat in these elections - which have more to do with rubbish collection than political reform - they could be wiped off the electoral map in next year's Legislative Council elections, when political reform will top the agenda. This theory, while appealing to those who aspire to full democracy in Hong Kong, is a far cry from the truth. A more detailed analysis of the voting figures shows that the leftists more or less held their ground amid the backlash over the Article 23 anti-subversion legislation. The polls were a major setback for the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, but their support base was unshaken. To begin with, as some newspapers have already pointed out, DAB candidates received 50,000 more votes than in the District Council polls four years ago. This, of course, could be partly attributed to the fact that they fielded 30 more candidates this year, and partly to the rising turnout rate - 248,800 more votes were cast compared with 1999. The increase in the total, however, implies that the DAB did not 'lose' a lot of votes. An analysis of the average vote share obtained by the parties' candidates will give a more accurate picture. In 1999, the Democratic Party and the DAB fielded more or less the same number of candidates (roughly 170), and got about the same number elected (83 to 82). The Democratic Party candidates got, on average, 45.4 per cent of the votes cast in their respective constituencies, with the DAB's candidates winning 44.7 per cent. This year, the Democratic Party received a marked increase in the average vote share. Its 120 candidates obtained, on average, 56 per cent of the votes in their respective constituencies, a 10 per cent increase from the last election. The DAB candidates, on average, obtained 38.7 per cent of the votes, only 6 per cent lower than the 1999 figure. Taking into account that the total number of votes increased by 23 per cent this year, the DAB at least managed to retain their hardcore supporters, who voted for them in 1999. Nevertheless, a 6 per cent swing in votes under a first-past-the-post system, as in the District Council elections, can bring a seismic change to the results. If each of the DAB candidates had seen such a swing in their favour, the alliance would have won 28 more seats, giving it 90 seats, and a modest success rate of 44 per cent. Legislators Ip Kwok-him and Lau Kong-wah would have been elected. But a 6 per cent drop in vote share under the proportional representation system in the coming Legco election may not hurt the DAB much. In the 2000 Legco election, the Democratic Party got 7 per cent fewer votes than in 1998, but they lost no seats. In 2000, the DAB got about 30 per cent of the votes. A drop of 6 per cent of the vote share will still give them 24 per cent, and under the proportional representation system, this should still give them seven or even eight seats of the 30 returned by direct election next year. That also means the pro-democracy camp needs to win at least three more seats in the functional constituencies (they currently have five) to bring in a pro-democracy majority to Legco from 2004-2008. The resilience of the pro-Beijing vote is more striking if we analyse the results of other pro-establishment candidates. Other than the 206 DAB candidates, there were more than 150 pro-Beijing candidates, most of whom did not openly declare their political affiliation. (It was believed that the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance, the pro-Beijing, pro-business party deemed more conservative than the DAB, fielded 40 candidates - but only 21 reported their party affiliation). On average, these candidates took 44.7 per cent of the votes in their districts, seemingly undisturbed by the July 1 demonstration. A plausible explanation is that the protest votes were mostly directed at the DAB. The other conservative groups, who played a less high-profile role in defending Article 23 legislation, were spared, or some voters were just not well-informed enough to see who the 'disguised' leftists were. Put another way, the 'landslide defeat' of the DAB was magnified by the resounding success for the Democratic Party. All but three of the 68 Democratic Party incumbents kept their seats. They served their constituents well, enabling them to reap most political reward from the Article 23 debate. The Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL), led by Frederick Fung Kin-kee, which is seen as more moderate, but focused more on constituency services, saw two-thirds of their candidates voted in. The other pro-democracy candidates, some 120 of them, had a mediocre success rate of 47 per cent. The high success rate of the Democratic Party and the ADPL shows that looking after the needs of constituents in the long-term at the district level and prudent nomination strategies pay off, as you need more than political slogans to beat the hardcore leftist supporters. In both the 1998 and 2000 Legco elections, there were about 400,000 votes for the pro-Beijing camp. The District Council elections showed that the leftist camp largely failed to gain any new ground, and a vast majority of the new voters did not choose them. But they were far from being wiped out, as their supporters seem unmoved by the events of July. The Article 23 saga and the setback in the District Council elections may lead to a more prudent nomination strategy for the DAB in the coming Legco elections, but the pro-Beijing camp can still win six seats even if two million cast their votes in September. Ma Ngok is an assistant professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
