Awaiting Democratic Hong Kong
3:30am Sunday. Column not in. Can’t seem to express exactly what is wrong with the electoral system in Hong Kong in a clear concise manner. It’s so complicated that no matter how much I research I don’t get what the hare quota system is. No one else has written about exactly what are the reasons that even with a majority of votes you can’t win the majority of seats even in the geographical constituencies. Supposedly it was in Spike Magazine, need to go to the library to borrow all the old issues except I can’t find my library card and can’t get into the archives without it. Great. Bad Bad Bad.
The more I research and try to put the pieces together the more everything had holes in it. I don’t actually think anyone, not even the democratic party has sat down and truly dissected the system, because as far as I can see if they had, they would have known there was no way to win a majority in the legislature at all. So I am not sure why they were calling it a referendum. It seems to me we were lead in a bit of a pointless hope with that. That’s not the way to run anything. Tell people that something that can’t work will happen because it only leads to disappointment and that’s how the whole, “Elections a blow to democracy,” angle came in.
This column is so much harder than I ever thought it was going to be. I wasn’t even following the elections that closely because I was waiting for the results because I figured that would be the most interesting thing. My problem of course is I am far more trained to run discourse analysis, and look at the way people have spoken about the event and what the sub-text means in general society then report on a event, but with the wider audience of the column I need to do both which leaves me confused sometimes.
I must sleep. If I don’t get this in soon, I am seriously in trouble. Right now as it is, the facts are so complicated that I don’t think I can untie them all in one piece of work document. It will probably take me a few months to sort it out. At least in real life terms we have four years to do so before the next elections, and work out a better way to either beat the system or find a way to abolish it.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
Gaa yau, Ah Yan! I keep reading on the BBC about the system being set up by the colonial masters to prevent the Chinese from having much of a say, but enough, in the way they lived their lives. Well, this happens to work out well for the new colonial masters. And, I’ve seen some interviews on RTHK and Jade TV with some local poli sci profs who seem to talk about some interesting things, but my Cantonese isn’t that sharp to penetrate their jargon.
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the system was actually set up by Beijing to allow smaller parties with beijing influence to have more of a say.
yan, i have a friend who worked for spike, if you want to see if he can give you all the issues, let me know.
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I need to watch more TV… I really should there are some really interesting stuff on the Chinese channels. The jargon is a little heavy sometimes, takes some getting used to.
Actually the system was set up by the British, as the first elections were held pre-handover. Not that you would remember, but I do.
As for the issues, I am sure it’s the library. A friend of a friend who worked for a magazine before seems a little bit of a stretch.
Yan
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Like you, I actually tried to understand the problems of Hong Kong’s proporational representative system but to no avail. It is just so complex. I have a sense that for a community (district) to get their preferred candidates elected, it would require perfect information on voter’s behavior during the election. Without perfect information, it is difficult to organize votes and you’ll end up in situations like Cyd Ho’s unfortunate lost. This type of election is like gambling or investing in red chips. So little information and so much uncertainty!
Anyway, I think the best explanation I have seen as to why the PR system is skewed comes from Christine Loh in an IHT article (it’s somewhere in on my blog but I just couldn’t locate it right now). I suspect the Chinese language press such as HK Economic Journal and local academics would have better explanations?
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http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=14660
Are you talking about this one? Maybe not. I dont’ actually agree with her tactical explainations because in some districts she says they should have gone on one ticket the other is they should have gone on multiple.
The way it looks to me, it probably doesn’t matter each way.
It’s even more complex if you look at the functional constituencies are voted by first past the post while the geographical is by proportional representation with a unique chinese perspective. What I found to be interesting is that the lowest functional constituency vote is only by 149 people in the Heung Yu Kok, very powerful people. Loads more little facts like that.
Anyway, I still researching as we speak, but I am probably going to write about 2046 and the political sub-text for now. It’s an easier thing to do and let the other one for next month.
Local acedemia is probably the best way. I didn’t even think of that.
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the hare quota system seems to be very much like a gerry-mander.a gerry-mander is an arbitrary arrangement of the political divisions of a constituency,made so as to give one party an unfair advantage in elections.sir joh bjelke-peterson used a gerry-mander to stay premier of queensland australia from 1968-1987.his national party was indeed much smaller than each of the two major political partys in queensland,is the hare system similar to queenslands westminster system?
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So that’s why that woman.. whats her name?? Paula? The fish and chips racist got voted in huh?
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i think pauline hanson got voted in because she put forward the belief that every australian should be equal,no mater what their race.that equality meant that even minority groups should have the same rites,no more no less than everyone.she was allso smart enough to run for election in redneck country,where her belief that indiginous people are given too many handouts must have hit a chord with the voters.its realy funny that the same tv station that labeled her a racist is now employing her to appear on a entertainment show called dance with the stars.a gerry-mander had nothing to do with her being elected to federal parliment,where she had no real power anyway.
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LOL. Funny that, sport. Asians in Australia, and obviously koori people, don’t quite see it the same way. For years and years Hanson and her racially-divisive, anti-immigrant politics, and her shadowy ties to far right groups which terrorized Asian communities caused all kinds of grief and misery, forcing them to band together to fight her and her so-called One Nation Party. One Nation under Anglo Australians, is what she meant. Not misery on the same level as the White Australia policy, since she did indeed have limited power as an MP, but, nevertheless, was perceived widely as an indicator of how Anglos felt about their Asian Australian neighbors. She’s in jail now. Strangely, many folks in Oz feel, even among Asian Australians, that she’s been done wrong. Here’s a link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2010782.stm
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Er, correction, was in jail. My bad. 😛
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she cant dance either
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