Hong Kong Legco election: biggest backers of pro-Beijing bloc live in public housing estates
- While turnout for Legco poll was low, many of the busiest polling stations were located near public housing blocks, including a number built within the past decade
- Kwun Tong polling station near quarters for many police officers turns in city’s highest turnout rate, sees three Beijing-friendly candidates claim 99 per cent of the vote
The polling station located at the clubhouse of Shun Lee Disciplined Services Quarters in Kwun Tong – home to hundreds of police officers – recorded the highest turnout in the city, with 66 per cent casting votes, or more than double the overall average of 30.2 per cent.
The three Beijing-friendly candidates running in the Kowloon East constituency bagged more than 99 per cent of the 2,619 ballots cast at that polling station, where centrist candidate Jeffrey Chan Chun-hung garnered just eight votes.
Pro-establishment politicians swept all but one seat in Sunday’s poll – the first citywide election since Beijing’s “patriots-only” overhaul of the city’s political system – amid a record low turnout.
The 11 moderate or centrist candidates vying for seats in the geographical constituencies were defeated by a wide margin, while the city’s traditional opposition parties – many with potential candidates in jail – sat out a race they said had been revamped with the goal of stifling dissent.
A Post examination of numbers from the city’s 620 general polling stations found that 21 of the 35 booths with the highest voter turnout – ranging from 36.1 per cent to 66 per cent – covered mostly residents of public housing estates.
Seven of those estates were less than 10 years old, including Kai Ching Estate in Kai Tak, On Tat Estate on Kwun Tong’s Anderson Road and So Uk Estate in Sham Shui Po, which was redeveloped just two years ago.