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City Weekend
Hong KongPolitics

Hong Kong district council elections: will protests move indifferent voters to come out and support pan-dem candidates?

  • Record number of pan-dem candidates bank on a stronger turnout of voters this month
  • Joshua Wong’s disqualification may help pan-dem camp sweep district polls, analysts say

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Hong Kong’s last district council elections were held in 2015. Photo: Roy Issa
Emily Tsang
Interior designer Edwin Pau Siu-ting, 34, cannot remember for certain how he spent Sunday, 22 November 2015 – the day when Hong Kong’s district council elections were last held.

“I must have taken my two kids to the park, had dinner, and walked the dog as usual,” says Pau, who lives in Kowloon Tong.

All he knows for sure is that he did not bother to vote. “I just did not think the district council election was important enough,” he says.

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He cannot even name the district councillor for his area.

His indifference is not uncommon, especially among Hong Kong’s middle-class voters who do not pay much attention to what goes on at the 18 district councils.

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Joshua Wong is the only candidate disqualified from this year’s polls. Photo: Nora Tam
Joshua Wong is the only candidate disqualified from this year’s polls. Photo: Nora Tam

In the wake of ongoing protests in Hong Kong, this year’s district council elections on November 24 have been shaping up to be different, with more pro-democracy candidates stepping forward to challenge pro-establishment councillors who are currently the majority in all councils.

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