The 2008 HK Legco Election Campaign

Hong Kong Legislative Council (Legco) election is divided into 30 functional and 30 geographical constituencies. The combined electors for the functional constituencies are about 230,000 whereas the geographical constituencies represent 3.37 million registered votes.

The functional constituencies are frequently critized as the undemocratic component of the Legco and most of the political parties across the divide have agreed to phase them out. The only difference among them is the timing.

The Pan-Democrats aims at 2013 and the largest pro-government party, DAB, aims at 2018. DAB's stance is in line with the NPC's ruling in favor of direct election for the Chief Executive in 2017 and Legco after 2017.

As of today, the electoral system used for the geographical constituencies is the list system of proportionate representation. Hong Kong SAR is divided into 5 multi-seats contituencies contested by numerous parties, organization and individuals.

This system broadly produce a pretty representative result - 60% for the Pan-Democrat and 40% for Pro-Establishment. The functional constituencies are designed to preserve the business, professional and pro-Beijing interest.

This weekend Legco election see the largest contest in the geographical constituencies. This is in large part due to the highly fractious Pan-Democratic camp consisting of diverse groups of political parties and organizations held in common by attacking the Donald Tsang's administration and its allies in the Legco, described variously as the Loyalist, pro-Beijing or pro-establishment camp.

This camp until recently was dominated by the Democratic Party. A new upstart, the Civil Party, led by several leading barristers in the city, and backed by former Chief Secretary, Ansan Chan, has emerged as the strong contender to be the largest party for the Pan-Democratic Camp.

This camp includes smaller party like the more radical League of Social Democrat (LSD), ADPL, labour union and interest groups.

Having said that the camp is not an alliance. There are massive intra-camp strifles as seen from the current election campaign. This is a natural consequence of the electoral system. It is easier to pinch the support from among the pan-democratic and independent supporters rather than from the supporters of the opposing camp.

The Pro-Establishment camp is represented mainly by the traditional leftist DAB, pro-business Liberal Party and HKFTU, a leftist labour union. Generally, there is more cohesion within this camp.

The issues for the election as seen from the several debates and campaign leaflets are dominated by livelihood and economic issues. The Pan-Democrats are also taking shots at the Pro-Establishment camp on a string of administrative blunder by the Tsang's administration.

The trend of this Legco election points t0 the pan-democrat camp's favor because of the general economic downturn that affects the livelihood issues faced by the middle and the working class.

What is interesting about this election is that there are a lot more political debates held among the candidates, almost all of which are broadcast and accessible by youtube. The quality of the debates, as in any debate, ranges widely from one extreme to the other, depending on one's view. Over all, this is a healthy development of a political debate culture - one that is fair and open. Debate time, and hence the air time, is given equally to all the contested candidates, even though he/she maybe an independent with very small following.

There is also a general trend across the divide towards nominating younger candidates, who becomes politically active after 1997 handover. This is a welcome sign because the political scene has been dominated by the so-called party big brothers who crafted their political skills mostly
post 1989 and have been around over the last two decades.

The turnout rate in the 2004 Legco was 55.64% and 2000 was 43.57%. It is unlikely that the 2008 turnout rate will be higher than the 2004 which saw a massive turnout (by Hong Kong standard) to express disapproval against CH Tung's administration for promoting article 23, a national security legislative proposal, widely regarded as an encroachment of Hong Kong's liberty as well as his perceived incompetence in managing the post-SAR economy.

It is true that Donald Tsang's popular rating suffered a significant drop lately. This surely doesn't help the pro-establishment camp.

On the other hand, the sentiment among the Hong Kongers towards Beijing is far more positive than in 2004 - CEPA (Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) and other policies have helped Hong Kong's economy; China's victory in Olympic has rallied patriotism. Having said that, it is however unlikely that the pro-establishment camp will be rewarded by the voters simply because Hong Kongers have stronger identification with China.

The 2004 Legco election produces 18 seats for Pan-democrats and 12 seats for pro-establishment camp. A by-election last year gave Pan-democratic an additional seat vacated by the death of a pro-establishment Legco member.

My prediction is that the turnout rate will be lower than 2004. This should favor pro-establishment camp as they are better at mobilizing their supporters.

However the general election factors favor the pan-democrat. The likely result will not produce a landslide because of the proportionate representation system used.

My prediction is 20 for the pan-dem and 10 for the pro-establishment camp, a slight improvement for the pan-dem from the last election.

It is fun watching how pluralistic the HK Legco election. I am however not so interested in the eventual electoral result. Rather it is the way how it is played out that interest me.