My TakePoll leaves Hong Kong opposition in a right quandary
By-election may appear a tie but the results were hardly a ringing endorsement of the pan-democrats and the question is where do they go from here?
As it was, the poll results were hardly an endorsement of the opposition by the general public.
Hong Kong’s pan-democrats apologise after by-election defeat
Initially, many had thought the pan-dems had the three geographical seats in the bag, and that their comrade Paul Zimmerman had a shot at the functional seat for the architectural, surveying, planning and landscape sectors. Both sympathy and protest votes were considered enough to tie their candidates over to victory.
But the DAB’s Vincent Cheng Wing-shun scored a surprise upset by beating Edward Yiu Chung-yim, one of the disqualified lawmakers who was hoping to return to the legislature.
There were not enough sympathy votes for Yiu to help him win while the DAB’s high-risk gamble at fielding a single candidate to fight Yiu paid off handsomely.
Meanwhile, Zimmerman became a lost cause long before Sunday, thanks largely to his trouble with illegal structures found at his home in Sai Kung.
His pan-dem supporters were seen as hypocrites for backing him while demanding the resignation of Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, the secretary for justice, who has had her own scandal over unauthorised structures at two luxury homes.