Hong Kong sees near-record low election turnout amid discontent over apartment fire | Hong Kong
Hong Kong saw near-record low turnout in Sunday’s “patriots-only” Legislative Council elections; The proportion of voters was less than 32%, as the number of registered voters fell for the fourth consecutive year.
Sunday’s participation rate was 31.9%, just above 2021’s record low of 30.2%. But fewer people voted overall this year: 1.3 million compared to 1.4 million in 2021. Hong Kong’s population is approximately 7.5 million.
Only candidates deemed “patriotic” by the government committee were allowed to run in the city’s 90-seat council. Only 20 of these seats are directly elected.
The government has launched a major campaign to encourage people to vote, extending polling hours by two hours compared to 2021 and decorating the city with posters urging people to vote.
Voters also received a “thank you card” redeemable for prizes at local businesses, and officials released an election anthem called “Let’s Vote, Together We Create the Future,” inspired by Cantopop star Aaron Kwok’s 2001 hit song Strong.
Following the electoral overhaul in 2021, only pro-Beijing “patriots” are allowed to run for government in Hong Kong, and the proportion of seats elected rather than appointed has been reduced. This means boycotting the vote is one of the only ways Hong Kongers can safely express their dissatisfaction.
Encouraging others to boycott voting is made a crime in 2021. On Sunday, Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) said four men, aged between 31 and 44, were arrested for allegedly encouraging others to not vote or cast invalid votes in social media comments. Icac said it had arrested 11 people for allegedly violating crime-related laws during the current elections, and three people have been prosecuted so far.
The election took place in the shadow of Hong Kong’s worst tragedy in decades, the Tai Po fire, which killed at least 159 people as the blaze spread across seven apartment blocks in a residential complex in northern Hong Kong.
As more revelations come to light about alleged building safety violations and questions about lax or negligent enforcement, Hong Kong residents have demanded government investigations and transparency into any official wrongdoing.
But mourning activities and calls for accountability over the fire have raised suspicion among authorities in Hong Kong. Instead, they launched a sweeping crackdown in the biggest test of Beijing’s national security regime in the city since pro-democracy protests in 2019 and 2020.
At least three people are thought to have been arrested for alleged national security crimes: Hong Kong student Miles Kwan, who started an online petition calling for the government to be held accountable, former district councilor Kenneth Cheung and 71-year-old political commentator Wong On-yin.
On Saturday, the government cleared an impromptu memorial site near the burned buildings, where people had been leaving flowers in remembrance for days. The previously announced cleanup began late at night.
“I wish it could have lasted longer, because I believe there are still people who don’t have enough time or the chance to express their feelings,” one resident told Reuters.
Earlier that day, Steve Li, chief of the police’s national security department, told media he had seen “familiar” scenes in Tai Po that reminded him of the 2019 protests, claiming the presence of leaflets and signs there that were “fundamentally unrelated to the disaster,” the Hong Kong Free Press reported.
“I was there to observe, and I think the situation is becoming more and more like ‘violence in black,'” Li said.
Authorities also targeted foreign media for their coverage of the fire, with representatives of media outlets including the New York Times summoned by authorities on Saturday.
Some Hong Kongers who posted online about the fires or contributed to civilian digital information sources stopped working, citing “force majeure” or concerns about their activities being “misinterpreted” by authorities. Last week, the “democracy wall” formed by students at Hong Kong Baptist University calling for justice for the victims was shut down, and the student union was closed the next day.
