City politics watchers say defeat at the polls may show that some have grown tired of the pan-democrats’ tactics
Hong Kong’s opposition politicians are picking up the pieces after suffering a crushing setback in Sunday’s Legislative Council by-election, which saw them lose two out of four seats that were theirs to retain and left them with a diminished vote share that reflected a widening rift with their traditional support base.
The loss marked the first time that pan-democrats squandered a by-election in the city’s polling history since its 1997 handover to Chinese sovereignty, and prompted them to make a public apology in front of the media’s cameras on Monday.
It was a far cry from the comeback they had expected to make, riding on what they had touted as a wave of public anger over the disqualification of elected lawmakers from their camp and Beijing’s tighter control over the city’s affairs.
“For the whole pan-democratic camp, it is a political defeat,” Chinese University political commentator Professor Ma Ngok said. “It is not that they won back two of the four seats, it is that they lost two seats previously held by them.
The biggest loser was localist Edward Yiu Chung-yim, one of the opposition camp’s star candidates, who secured about 48.8 per cent of votes but lost in the Kowloon West constituency to pro-establishment rival Vincent Cheng Wing-shun of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB).
“I will bear full responsibility for the failure,” Yiu said, while denying that he had underestimated the competition. “I lack experience in direct elections and did not plan my campaigns well enough. I did not go to some of the stations that I should have visited to canvass support.”
The result in Kowloon West, previously a pan-democrat stronghold, marked a shock reversal of fortune capping a by-election that saw the opposition camp’s vote share drop to between 44 per cent and 51 per cent in the three geographical constituencies from 60 per cent in the past and about 55 per cent in recent years.
Gary Fan Kwok-wai of the NeoDemocrats and non-affiliated Au Nok-hin managed to win the other two directly elected seats for the opposition in the New Territories East and Hong Kong Island geographical constituencies respectively.
Moderate pro-establishment candidate Tony Tse Wai-chuen beat pan-democrat Paul Zimmerman by grabbing 55.
