Hong Kong people have spoken, and it doesn’t bode well for the government

In the past seven weeks, campaigns for election to the sixth term of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council swept through the city like a wild fire, riveting attention on the more than 100 teams which competed for 40 popularly elected seats – including five so-called “super seats” in the district council functional constituency, in which candidates canvassed votes from over 3.4 million voters throughout the city.

Many candidates ran on slogans and platforms related to Hong Kong’s future – “Finding a way forward for the city”, “Win back Hong Kong!”, “Democratic self-determination”, or “Ensuring continuation of the Basic Law”. In a city yearning for a greater say in the management of its affairs, but lacking the opportunity to elect its chief by universal suffrage, the choice of candidates is widely seen as a proxy for the public’s verdict on the performance of the government.

The overall picture does not bode well for the government. Although the proportion of votes cast for the pro-establishment and opposition camps remains largely unchanged, and several veterans and candidates who ran on an anti-chief-executive platform failed to get elected, several worrying developments cry out for attention.

Despite the best efforts of the pro-establishment candidates, their camp ended up losing two seats – one in geographical constituencies and one in the architectural, surveying, planning and landscape functional constituency. The reduction of the pro-establishment bloc’s hold in the geographical constituencies (16 pro-government versus 19 opposition) further reduces the chance of the legislature to self-correct by amending the rules of procedure to reduce the abuse of the filibuster.

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The poor showings of the two pro-establishment challengers in the accountancy and information technology constituencies are worrisome, as they appear to reflect the inability of pro-government candidates to capture the support of constituencies comprised wholly or substantially of individual members. The accountancy constituency is well known to include many young accountants whose remuneration and prospects fall short of those of their seniors by a wide margin. If the discontent of young professionals continues to build up, four years from now, the pro-establishment camp risks losing more seats in functional constituencies with large numbers of young, individual voters.