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Letters | Hong Kong election: banning opposition only hurts Beijing’s long-term interests
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I woke up yesterday to the news that Hong Kong had disqualified 12 opposition lawmakers from running for the Legislative Council, with potentially more to come. The international community quickly condemned the decision while Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s government defended it, suggesting it had nothing to do with political suppression and in no way infringed on freedom of speech.
Putting aside how absurd the administration’s comments are, it was expected that people like Joshua Wong Chi-fung, the sole candidate disqualified from the district council elections, would once again suffer that fate.
While I disagree with those disqualifications, in the wake of the national security law, localist candidates no doubt expected this. What surprised me was that veteran, incumbent and more moderate lawmakers have also been disqualified.
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While the agenda is obvious from Beijing’s perspective, I find the move baffling. Beijing knows it made a massive miscalculation in the district council elections and wants to avoid yet another humiliation. Postponing the elections for a year or disqualifying candidates will not achieve that unless every single opposition lawmaker is disqualified, at which point it might as well end “one country, two systems” and directly step in to govern.
If the government somehow thinks disqualifying candidates will sway voters towards pro-Beijing politicians, it is wrong. If anything, it will have the opposite effect. Some figure from the opposition camp will still slot in and run.
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12 Legislative Council hopefuls including Joshua Wong banned from running
12 Legislative Council hopefuls including Joshua Wong banned from running
Even if they are less preferred than the original candidate, they will still take up all of their votes and maybe even more. Unless Beijing disqualifies all opposition candidates, this move only serves to hurt it even more.
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