Hong Kong's Tunisian community, with just 20 or so members, made a little bit of history yesterday by being among the first to vote in what is being described as the North African country's first fair and free elections in decades.
Inside a tiny office-cum-polling station in Sai Ying Pun, dressed in red and white - the colours of their flag - nationals cast their hard-earned votes. 'You know they used to use the IDs of the dead people to vote [for deposed dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali],' said Mongia Magill, president of the Hong Kong election bureau. 'This is the first time we feel like we actually have a say.'
Magill was the first Tunisian to come to Hong Kong, in 1982, as a merchant banker but is now a headhunter.
It was a desire to have their voices heard that led Hong Kong's Tunisians to make a special plea to be able to vote. A limit of 50 expatriates had been set by the post-revolutionary authorities to qualify for an overseas vote before the Hong Kong community intervened.
Magill said advice from the Hong Kong group also ensured that fellow countrymen on the mainland and in Canada knew how to organise their vote. 'Through Facebook, we gave people in Canada and Beijing all the information they needed to be able to vote, to get the three observers they needed to be able to,' Magill said.
Votes can be cast until tomorrow at the Sai Ying Pun office of the honorary consul for Tunisia, Richard Wong Che-keung. But Wong is not involved in the process, as he was appointed while Ben Ali was still in power.
