Hong Kong pro-establishment candidate Chan Hoi-yan wins Kowloon West by-election
- Pan-democrats will now be outnumbered 18 to 16 in the geographical consistency
- Rival candidate Lee Cheuk-yan’s campaign had been affected by vote-splitting, critics said
The Hong Kong opposition camp’s hopes of regaining veto power in the legislature were dashed on Monday, as pro-establishment candidate Chan Hoi-yan took the remaining seat in the Kowloon West constituency by a sizeable margin in Sunday’s by-election.
Chan took 106,457 votes – 13,410 more than her main rival, Labour Party stalwart Lee Cheuk-yan, who ran at the behest of ousted lawmaker Lau Siu-lai.
Critics said Lee’s campaign had suffered from vote splitting with another candidate, Frederick Fung Kin-kee, a former ally of the pan-democrats. Fung got 12,509 votes.
Two other candidates – IT worker Ng Dick-hay and non-affiliated Judy Tzeng Li-wan, took 1,650 and 1,307 votes respectively.
More than 216,000 voters, or 44.4 per cent of the 487,000 registered, voted before polling stations closed at 10.30pm on Sunday.
When Fung arrived at the media centre at Tiu Keng Leng Sports Centre at 1.30am on Monday, he was booed by a group of pro-democracy camp supporters in the public area.