Low turnout is the main threat to Beijing’s plan for the first Hong Kong Legislative Council election since the communist dictatorship intervened in semi-autonomous territory last year and demanded an exclusive election for “patriots”.
Less than 40% of the 4.47 million registered voters in the region are eligible to participate, according to a survey cited by the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. If confirmed, the index will be the lowest since open elections began in 2000.
That year, still under the impact of transitional rules after the return of the then British colony to China in 1997, 43% voted. On average, however, attendance is above 50% and hit almost 60% in the 2016 election.
In it, names like Eddie Chu and Nathan Law, twenty-somethings from pro-democracy movements who had taken to the streets, were elected and injected an unprecedented degree of diversity into the then 70-member council.
Five years later, the scenario could not be different. Faced with six months of chaos in the streets of the former city-state, Beijing did not risk seeing its main trading post spin out of control and inspire other regions ethnically diverse from most of the country.
A harsh repression came down. In 2020, it instituted the National Security Law, effectively ending the regime of great autonomy enshrined in the so-called Basic Law, which stipulated the rule of “two systems, one country” — establishing Hong Kong as an island of unregulated capitalism and plenty of freedom, with free judiciary and press.
Chinese political police have opened a base in the city, and the pursuit of dissent includes threats to opponents who have been exiled. Journalists practice self-censorship and a major pro-democracy publication, the Apple Daily, closed under government pressure, and its editors jailed.
Law left the country shortly after the enactment of the new law and went to the United Kingdom, where he is in exile — he had only managed to stay 12 days as a deputy, being disqualified for formalities. Chu, after being arrested and facing the risk of years in jail earlier this year, disbanded his group and retired from politics.
When you talked to the leaf about the crisis in his office in November 2019, Chu was moderately optimistic. He always remembered that there were at least 40% of votes guaranteed for pro-Beijing parties, and that the landslide victory of politicians linked to street protests in the recent local election was illusory.
Were. In September 2020, the entire opposition resigned from the legislature. This year came the final blow, with the reformulation of the electoral system, taking advantage of the postponement of the September 2020 legislative election due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Only “patriots”, in the definition coming from Beijing, could run for election. The Legislative Council, which had 35 directly elected members, or 50% of its total, has changed: now 22% (20) are elected, in addition to 30 members appointed by 38 different guilds and 40 by the powerful Electoral Committee — in all, 90 names.
This committee has 1,448 members and is seen as part of Chinese instrumentation in local politics. It is from there that the name, to be ratified in Beijing, of the chief executive of the region comes from. In the election for 346 open seats in September, only 1 went to a politician seen with pro-democracy sympathies.
“This proves that the election is free,” Tam Yiu-chung, the only Honconian in the highest Chinese legislative body, the Standing Committee, told SCMP recently. “It’s just a selection process,” Law replied on Twitter.
The current president of the Legislative Council, Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen, told the newspaper that he had not received a “dim sum paper”, jargon that associates the wrapping of traditional Cantonese stuffed dough bundles with ready-made lists of names, and that the dispute is free.
That may be, but there won’t be any Eddie Chus in it, for alleged reasons of unpatriotism.
From a Chinese geopolitical perspective, the story is different. The pro-democracy movements wanted to perpetuate the Basic Law system, expected to end in 2047, and many of its elements called for independence with the support of the United States.
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump wasted no time and, in the spirit of his Cold War 2.0, supported the protesters. The US Congress promoted sanctions against officials, infuriating the Chinese — who saw outside interference driven by political interest.
Indeed, it is unthinkable that Washington would accept Politburo support for secessionists in California, for example.
The central issue of criticism for China was the harshness of the repression, which was gradually absorbed: there was no unbridled rush of western companies based in the territory, despite its financial market having acquired a more Chinese profile.
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