China praises Hong Kong poll
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , HONG KONG
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004,Page 5
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/09/15/2003202980
A series of tactical errors, with peculiarities in the voting process, prevented democracy advocates from winning as many seats as expected in Sunday’s legislative elections, politicians and political analysts said on Monday.
The election has been widely watched as a test of the government’s tolerance for democracy.
Radio station RTHK reported on Monday that a Chinese official described the election as the most democratic in Hong Kong’s history.
Pro-democracy opposition candidates here captured roughly three-fifths of the popular vote, while Beijing’s local allies captured most of the rest.
Half of all votes cast by industry leaders and professionals, who are allowed to send representatives to the 60-member Legislative Council, also went to democracy supporters, according to calculations by Civic Exchange, a nonprofit research group. But in terms of seats, democracy proponents won 18 of the 30 chosen by the public, but only six of 30 selected by industries and professions.
In addition to the 24 seats controlled by pro democracy legislators, professions chose two candidates for the first time with strong democratic leanings and industries re-elected two candidates who occasionally favor greater democracy.
That could give the opposition a total of 28 votes on some issues, enough to create difficulty for the pro-Beijing local government because some lukewarm Beijing supporters in the legislature are harried business leaders who show up infrequently to vote.
Democratic Party leaders said they would try to learn from the election, but mostly criticized the management of the vote. Ballot boxes were too small to hold all the votes cast on a day of record turnout by 55.6 percent of the 3.2 million registered voters, and long lines formed at some polling places as voters waited for more ballot boxes to arrive.
A more serious problem for the Democratic Party may be the public’s broad disenchantment with all political parties after a nasty, scandal-ridden campaign.
“There are lots of oranges, they are all bad, and we are just choosing the least bad,” said John Siu, 21, a university student, after voting.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 