By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang
HONG KONG, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s election on Sunday saw a near-record-low turnout after the city’s worst fire in nearly 80 years prompted anger against its China-backed authorities, but voter participation did not drop as much as some analysts had predicted.
The city government said the final turnout in the Legislative Council election was 31.9%, versus 30.2% in the previous vote in 2021, which was the lowest since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Security was tight in the northern district of Tai Po, close to the border with mainland China, where the fire engulfed seven residential towers. Only candidates vetted as “patriots” by the China-backed Hong Kong government were allowed to run.
Residents are angry over the blaze that killed at least 159 people and took nearly two days to extinguish after it broke out on November 26. The authorities say substandard building materials used in renovating a high-rise housing estate were responsible for fuelling the fire.
Eager to contain the public dismay, authorities have launched criminal and corruption investigations into the blaze, and roughly 100 police patrolled the area around Wang Fuk Court, the site of the fire, throughout Sunday.
AUTHORITIES MAKE ARRESTS FOR INCITING VOTE BOYCOTT
The city’s anti-corruption agency said on Sunday four men were arrested on suspicion of using social media to incite people not to vote or cast invalid votes. It obtained an arrest warrant for another man for a social media post on Saturday.
Publicly inciting a vote boycott was criminalised as part of the sweeping changes that effectively squeezed out pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong. Pro-democracy voters, who traditionally made up about 60% of the electorate, have since shunned elections.
At a memorial site near the burned-out residential development, a sign said authorities plan to clear the area after the election concluded close to midnight, suggesting government anxiety over public anger.
The government took several measures to boost turnout, extending voting by two hours and creating new polling stations. Some large firms and chambers of commerce also lobbied staff and the broader public to vote.
Beijing’s national security office in Hong Kong has said it would crack down on any “anti-China” protest in the wake of the fire and warned against using the disaster to “disrupt Hong Kong”.
China’s national security office in Hong Kong warned senior editors with a number of foreign media outlets at a meeting in the city on Saturday not to spread “false information” or “smear” government efforts to deal with the fire.
The blaze is a major test of Beijing’s grip on the former British colony, which it has transformed under a national security law after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.
An election overhaul in 2021 also mandated that only pro-Beijing “patriots” could run for the global financial hub’s 90-seat legislature. Only 20 of those seats are directly elected.
A resident in his late 70s named Cheng, who lives near the charred buildings, said he did not vote.
“I’m very upset by the great fire,” he said, declining to give his full name for fear of becoming a target for authorities.
“I won’t vote to support those pro-establishment politicians who failed us.”
The number of registered voters for Sunday’s polls – 4.13 million – has dropped for the fourth consecutive year since 2021, when a peak of 4.47 million people were registered.
Some analysts were predicting potentially lower turnout given the city’s sombre mood and both Hong Kong and Chinese officials stressed the importance of the vote ahead of the poll.
“We absolutely need all voters to come out and vote today, because every vote represents our push for reform, our protection of the victims of (fire) disaster, and a representation of our will to unite and move forward together,” Hong Kong leader John Lee said after casting his vote.
(Additional reporting by Joyce Zhou, Artorn Pookasook, Angie Teo, Fabian Hamacher and Laurie Chen; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree, Marius Zaharia and Greg Torode; Editing by William Mallard and Philippa Fletcher)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.