Hong Kong to Slash Locally Elected Seats in Democracy Rebuke

Kari Lindberg
·2 min read
1

(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong plans to slash the number of directly elected seats in local district councils as authorities seek to prevent activists from gaining power.

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The proposal would see the city hold direct elections for just 20% of Hong Kong’s district council seats, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said at a Tuesday press briefing. Lee would appoint roughly 40% of the seats, while the rest would be indirectly elected via community organizations.

Changes to the city’s once-open electoral systems have been in the works for years. At the briefing, Lee alluded to the council’s last election in 2019, when protests swept the city and pro-democracy candidates won 85% of the 452 seats up for election in a stunning rebuke of the city’s Beijing-backed government.

Those victories were short-lived. After Beijing in 2020 imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that quelled dissent, the city required elected officials to pledge allegiance to the Basic Law — Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. Instead of doing so, hundreds of them resigned, according to local media. Others were disqualified.

“They acted in a way that was contrary to the interests of Hong Kong, and so many of them refused to swear allegiance,” Lee said at the briefing, where he accused those councilors of trying to “obstruct the governance” of Hong Kong.

The total number of seats would be reduced to 470 from 479, Lee said. The government is drafting a bill containing the amendment so that it can implement the changes. The next district council election is scheduled for later this year.

District board elections were first held in Hong Kong in 1982, when the city was still British-controlled, with one third directly elected.

The local district councils are considered the lowest rung of the city’s government, and mostly advise the chief executive on matters including on the use of public facilities and organizing community activities.

But Tuesday’s announcement was emblematic of what has become a series of changes to chip away at a system that once provided its people a far greater ability to directly elect representatives.

In 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping signed orders to amend Hong Kong’s Basic Law. The sweeping plan from Beijing revamped the body that picks Hong Kong’s leader and gave it the power to directly elect 40 members of the Legislative Council, the city’s more powerful lawmaking body.

Changes to the rules also ensured that only “patriots” can hold an elected seat in the city’s parliament.

--With assistance from Olivia Tam.

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