Hong Kong legislative election, 2016

Electoral reform failure and Umbrella Revolution

The election comes after the rejection of constitutional reform proposals of the Leung Chun-ying administration in mid-2015 meant the electoral method for the Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2016 was unchanged. On 31 August 2014, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) set limits for the 2016 Legislative Council and 2017 Chief Executive elections. While reaffirming the electoral method for the 2016 Legislative Council election remained unchanged, the 2014 NPCSC decision allowed the Chief Executive (CE) to be directly elected but "unpatriotic" candidates would have to be screened out by a Beijing-controlled nominating committee. In response to the NPCSC decision, the student activists staged a class boycott which led into a months-long large-scale occupy movement as proposed by the Occupy Central, which was referred as the "Umbrella Revolution".

The government proposals were overwhelmingly rejected in the Legislative Council following a failed walk-out by the pro-Beijing camp on 18 June 2015. In response, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying urged the voters to "punish" the opposition democratic candidates by voting them out in the upcoming legislative election.

ThunderGo plan

In early 2016, Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai, who was inspired by the electoral victory the Democratic Progressive Party received in the 2016 Taiwanese legislative election, mapped out a "ThunderGo plan" for pan-democrats to grab half of the seats in the Legislative Council election to increase political leverage in future political reform. He suggests the anti-establishment forces to field no more than 23 lists if their goal was to win 23 seats in the geographical constituencies, six tickets for nine-seat New Territories West and New Territories East, four tickets for six-seat Hong Kong Island and Kowloon West, and three for five-seat Kowloon East respectively. For the functional constituencies, Tai suggested that besides retaining the current six trade-based functional constituencies and three territory-wide directly elected District Council (Second) super seats, the camp needs to target three additional seats in Medical, Engineering and Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape. The plan met with reservations from the very diverse interests within pro-democracy political parties, who could not agree on a united front. Tai's plan hit its setback when the Neo Democrats decided not to support the proposed coordinating mechanism for the District Council (Second) super seats in May.

Tai also worked on a "smart voters" system involving 25,000 voters who would indicate their preferences on an interactive poll via Telegram and would be informed of the popularity of candidates according to polls the day before the official vote and which would be updated through exit polling two and a half hours before polls closed. Such "smart voters" would delay voting until 8pm and then be signalled to support candidates whose numbers were weaker instead wasting votes on stronger candidates who were already through.

Emergence of new political forces

The emergence of new political groups led by young activists began to influence the political landscape: Edward Leung of Hong Kong Indigenous, a pro-independence localist group, received a better-than expected result in the New Territories East by-election in February 2016 by taking more than 66,000 votes and gaining about 15 percent of the total votes. After the election, Edward Leung claimed localism had become the third most important power grouping in Hong Kong politics alongside the pan-democracy and pro-Beijing camps. A day after the election, three localist groups, Wong Yuk-man's Proletariat Political Institute, Wong Yeung-tat's Civic Passion and Chin Wan's Hong Kong Resurgence Order, announced to run in the upcoming election.

On 10 April 2016. six localist groups which emerged after the 2014 Umbrella Revolution, Youngspiration, Kowloon East Community, Tin Shui Wai New Force, Cheung Sha Wan Community Establishment Power, Tsz Wan Shan Constructive Power and Tuen Mun Community, formed an electoral alliance under the name "ALLinHK" planned to field candidates in four of the five geographical constituencies with the agenda to put forward a referendum on Hong Kong's self-determination, while Hong Kong Indigenous and another new pro-independence Hong Kong National Party also stated that they would run in the upcoming election.

Also on 10 April 2016, the student leaders in the Umbrella Revolution, Joshua Wong, Oscar Lai and Agnes Chow of Scholarism and Nathan Law of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) formed a new party called Demosistō. The new party calls for referendum on Hong Kong's future after 2047 when the one country, two systems is supposed to expire. and aimed to field candidates in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon East.

Ronny Tong's Path of Democracy and Tik Chi-yuen's Third Side, the two new political groups which split from the Civic Party and Democratic Party respectively, seek a middle path between the pro-Beijing camp and pan-democracy camp on achieving democracy, with plans to field candidates in the geographical constituency election.

The soaring number of political groups and candidates may split the pro-democracy votes, according to political scientist Professor Ma Ngok.

Leung Chun-ying's re-election

The pan-democracy camp campaigned to block Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, whose popularity dropped to a new low, from serving a second term. Technology and media entrepreneur Ricky Wong Wai-kay, whose Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV) free-to-air television licence was denied by Leung's Executive Council in October 2013 and sparked public uproar and protests, also started his "ABC campaign" (Anyone but CY) by announcing Leung's exit as his key campaign platform. Wong was backed by the Liberal Party, a pro-Beijing party representing the business sector which had been at odds with the Chief Executive since the 2012 Chief Executive election when the Liberals openly opposed Leung.

On 28 July, President of the Legislative Council Jasper Tsang and Financial Secretary John Tsang both expressed interest in running for the Chief Executive in 2017 in different occasions. Political analysts said that the duo's moves would take some pressure off pro-Beijing camp preparing for the Legislative Council election as pro-Beijing candidates had struggled when asked in public if they supported Leung's re-election.

Causeway Bay bookseller disappearances

Lam Wing-kee, one of the five Causeway Bay booksellers who went missing from October 2015 returned to Hong Kong and revealed at a press conference in June 2016 that he was kidnapped at the China–Hong Kong border in October and put through eight months of mental torture. The controversy ignited fears that mainland law enforcement officers may have acted within the territory of Hong Kong and shook Hong Kong's confidence in the one country, two systems. Professor Lau Siu-kai, former head of the Hong Kong government's think tank, the Central Policy Unit, worried that more people may vote for pan-democracy camp in September's election.

Resignations of ICAC heads controversy

In July, acting head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) Rebecca Li Bo-lan resigned after she was removed from her position by ICAC commissioner Simon Peh Yun-lu, less than a year after he appointed her. The rare move amid speculation that Li was removed over an investigation into Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's receipt of HK$50 million from Australian firm UGL Limited. Less than a week later, long-serving ICAC principal investigator Dale Ko also resigned without any meaningful official explanation. The controversy sparked calls for a special Legislative Council investigation and raised fears about the reputation of the anti-corruption body.

Ban on pro-independence candidates controversy

On 14 July 2016, the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) announced its plan to require all candidates to sign an additional "confirmation form" in the nomination to declare their understanding of Hong Kong being an inalienable part of China as stipulated in the Basic Law, in response to many potential localist candidates advocating or promoting Hong Kong independence. The EAC states that anyone making a false declaration in the nomination form was liable to criminal sanction.

EAC returning officers also sent emails to several applicants who had not been confirmed as official candidates, including Hong Kong Indigenous' Edward Leung, Civic Passion's Alvin Cheng, Hong Kong National Party's Chan Ho-tin, to ask whether they would still advocate independence after submitting the nomination form. Those questions were claimed to be a factor to determine the validity of their nominations.

After the end of the nomination period, six localist candidates received emails from the EAC which said their nominations were "invalidated", which included Chan Ho-tin, Democratic Progressive Party's Yeung Ke-cheong, Nationalist Hong Kong's Nakade Hitsujiko, Conservative Party's Alice Lai Yee-man, Hong Kong Indigenous' Edward Leung and independent Chan Kwok-keung, although many of them had signed the additional confirmation form; all except Yeung had signed the declaration statement in the nomination form saying they would "uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong SAR" as required by the Legislative Council Ordinance. New Territories East constituency returning officer Cora Ho Lai-sheung rejected Leung's nomination on the basis that she did not trust Leung "genuinely changed his previous stance for independence."

Contesting parties and candidates

A historic record of 289 validly nominated candidates contested in the election, two more than the previous election, after seven candidates were disqualified, six of whom due to their pro-independence stance, and two withdrew their candidatures. 84 lists with a total of 213 candidates contested the 35 geographical constituencies, while 55 candidates contested in the traditional functional constituencies, 43 of them ran for 18 seats in the functional constituencies. A total of 21 candidates belonging to 9 lists contested the five "super seats" in the District Council (Second) functional constituency.

Pro-Beijing camp

Pan-democracy camp

Localist groups

Moderate groups

Election strategies

Many political parties and groups and individuals formed strategic alliances in the campaign. Alvin Yeung of the Civic Party who led in the opinion polls in the New Territories East cooperated with Labour Party's Fernando Cheung who traced behind in the polls. Leung Yiu-chung of the Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre (NWSC) who ran in the territory-wide District Council (Second) "super seat" also had joint-promotional leaflets with Lau Siu-lai of Democracy Groundwork in Kowloon West. Liberal Party honorary chairman James Tien who was running in the New Territories East and "middle-of-the-road" politician Ricky Wong Wai-kay who aimed at the last seat in Hong Kong Island also went out of their constituencies and campaigned for each other. James Tien also campaigned for the "middle-of-the-road" party Third Side's Tik Chi-yuen who aimed at the last seat in Kowloon West against Yau Wai-ching of the localist group Youngspiration. On 15 August, it was reported that volunteers and staff from Kowloon West New Dynamic chaired by pro-Beijing politician Priscilla Leung helped Tik arrange a meet-the-public event in Sham Shui Po.

In the District Council (Second) constituency, the Democratic Party also asked the supporters of veteran James To who led in the polls to vote for another Democrat candidate Kwong Chun-yu who was fighting for the last seat against Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) candidate Holden Chow. The Democratic Party invited former Chief Secretary Anson Chan to back Kwong, who also endorsed Civic Party's Sumly Chan who ran in the same constituency.

In late August, the pro-Beijing parties also began to campaign for each other. DAB District Council (Second) candidate Holden Chow campaigned for New People's Party (NPP) New Territories East candidate Eunice Yung who was behind in the opinion polls, in exchange for the 24 NPP New Territories district councillors to campaign for Chow. Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) District Council (Second) candidate Wong Kwok-hing also campaigned with Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) Kowloon West candidate Priscilla Leung, the only constituency where the FTU did not field their candidate.

Issues and election forums

Issues including Hong Kong independence, filibustering, universal retirement protection scheme, standard working hours and Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's administration and re-election took central stage at the election forums. Pro-Beijing candidates questioned pan-democrat parties' stance on Hong Kong independence, while localist Kowloon East Community's Chan Chak-to declared his support for independence at the TVB Kowloon East electoral forum despite six pro-independence candidates had been disqualified. Localist candidates exchanged criticisms with the pan-democrats as the pan-democrat candidates dismissed localists' pro-independence call as empty talk.

The pro-Beijing candidates also accused the pan-democrats of their filibustering and obstructionism in the Legislative Council, while pan-democrat candidates attacked the pro-Beijing candidates did not push for a more progressive universal retirement protection scheme and standard working hours policies. The pan-democrats also criticised the pro-Beijing camp being allies of the Leung Chun-ying government and opposed to use Powers and Privileges Ordinance to investigate into Leung's receipt of HK$50 million from UGL Limited and resignations of ICAC heads.

Ken Chow's dropout

On 25 August, Liberal Party’s Ken Chow Wing-kan who ran for New Territories West announced he would stop his electioneering at the Cable TV election forum for fear of "people close to him paying a heavy price". He earlier revealed that he was approached by a middleman to quit the race for a hefty sum of money. Chow passed a voice clip to the media before the election forum, in which a man claimed he would bring 20 to 30 Ho supporters to "pursue" Chow before and after the forum so that he would "lose mood" for the debate. The man in the clip also said the supporters should wear another candidate Lawyer Junius Ho’s vests during the forum. Ho denied having any plans to intimidate Chow and claimed he had rejected one of his supporters' proposal to "pursue" Chow.

Pan-democrat candidates' dropouts

On 2 September less than 48 hours before the election day and after the release of the large-scale opinion poll conducted by University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme (HKUPOP) and sponsored by pro-democracy group Power for Democracy, five pro-democrat candidates, independents Paul Zimmerman and Chui Chi-kin in Hong Kong Island, Labour Party's Suzanne Wu in Kowloon East and Civic Party's Sumly Chan and Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood's (ADPL) Kalvin Ho Kai-ming in District Council (Second), suspended their campaigns in the hope of deflecting support to fellow pan-democrats who were seen as standing a better chance. Clarice Cheung Wai-ching, a non-aligned independent also abandoned her campaign in New Territories West and called her supporters to vote for pan-democrat candidates. On 3 September, the third pro-democratic District Council (Second) candidate Kwan Wing-yip also aborted his campaign but marked it as "a dark day for democracy".

Opinion polling

The reliability of the rolling poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme (HKUPOP) was widely questioned. The sample size of the poll, fewer than 300 respondents in each of the five geographical constituencies each day, was criticised as being too small. Additionally, pollsters only mentioned the first candidate on the list during interviews which could have made a difference in the results, as many veterans, including Democrats Sin Chung-kai, Albert Ho and Emily Lau, Liberal James Tien, Civic Party's Alan Leong, and People Power Albert Chan, stood in the second place behind the new faces on their party lists while their lists continued to trail behind in the polls. After the complaints, the HKUPOP decided to mention two candidates on the candidate list to respondents from 22 August night onwards.

Results

Before election:

Change in composition:

Incumbents defeated

Fifteen incumbents lost re-election.

Outcome

A record breaking of 2.2 million voters cast their votes, which composed of 58 per cent of the total electorate. Many voters queued outside the polling stations even after polling stations were due to close at 10:30pm and a polling station in Taikoo Shing, the last vote was cast at almost 2:30am. the anti-establishment forces, including the pan-democrats and the localists, won 29 out of 70 seats; managed to retain the majority in the geographical constituencies to block the pro-Beijing camp's attempt to amend the rule of procedures to curb radicals' filibustering and the opposition's crucial one-thirds minority to maintain the veto power on government's constitutional reform proposal.

The localists, six backers of self-determination for Hong Kong, including Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung from the post-Occupy group Youngspiration, Occupy student leader Nathan Law of the Demosisto, who became the youngest ever candidate to be elected, Polytechnic University lecturer Lau Siu-lai, Eddie Chu, were returned in the geographical constituencies, securing of nearly 20 per cent of the vote share. Eddie Chu, a social activist and environmentalist, bagged more than 84,000 votes, the highest votes received in the geographical constituencies, without any party backing in New Territories West, leading the first runner-up, New People's Party's Michael Tien by about 13,000 votes. His allies, Nathan Law and Lau Siu-lai also became the pro-democrats which received the highest votes in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon West. The three took a total of 173,122 votes. For the ardently localist faction, Baggio Leung, leader of Youngspiration won in New Territories East after his ally, Hong Kong Indigenous' Edward Leung was barred from poll while Yau Wai-ching won last seat in Kowloon West by about 400 votes at the expense of veteran Wong Yuk-man of the Proletariat Political Institute. Wong's ally, Civic Passion leader Wong Yeung-tat also lost in his second bid in Kowloon East. Only Cheng Chung-tai from the electoral alliance won a seat in the New Territories West.

The pan-democrats saw their big names losing, including Labour Party's Lee Cheuk-yan and Cyd Ho and Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood's (ADPL) Frederick Fung. As a result, ADPL and Neo Democrats were ousted from the legislature while Labour retained only one seat. Benny Tai's ThunderGo plan was blamed as he released on the election day a list of recommended pro-democratic candidates based on pre-polling. It drew the voters to vote for the candidates who were on the brink of losing as shown in the polls from other candidates, which resulted in highest votes received by Eddie Chu, Lau Siu-lai and Nathan Law at other veteran democrats' expenses. Kwong Chun-yu, a Democratic Party young candidate in the District Council (Second) "super seat" who was also tracing behind in the polls received the highest votes of nearly 500,000 votes as a result, while the former "King of Votes", veteran Democrat James To who had led in the polls for weeks faced a though battle with pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions's (FTU) Wong Kwok-hing for the last of the five "super seats". To secured the third seats for the pan-democrats with a thin margin of 10,694 votes. By putting themselves on the second place in their candidate lists, the veteran Democrats also managed to help their young colleagues to be elected, which made the Democratic Party the largest pro-democratic party again, overtaking the Civic Party. The pro-democrats retained their six out of nine seats in New Territories East, with both radicals democrats, Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats (LSD) and Chan Chi-chuen of the People Power retained their seats despite the overcrowding of the pro-democratic tickets. Leung, who took the last seat in the New Territories East by the margin of only 1,051 votes.

The pan-democrats also boost their functional constituency seats to 10. Besides retaining the pan-democrats' traditional strongholds including Legal and Education, as well as Kenneth Leung's Accountancy and Charles Mok's Information Technology, pan-democrat Edward Yiu made a surprise victory in Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape, defeating incumbent pro-Beijing Tony Tse who became the only incumbent who lost in the functional constituencies. The pro-Beijing camp remained dominant in the functional constituencies. The pro-business Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) dominated in the functional constituencies by retaining six seats as well as Priscilla Leung's seat in Kowloon West. The Liberal Party came second by retaining the four functional constituency despite Joseph Chan's unsuccessful challenge against BPA's Jeffrey Lam in Commercial (First) and Dominic Lee's failed bid in New Territories East. The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) maintained its status as the largest party by winning 12 seats in total, one seat fewer than the previous election, while Regina Ip's New People's Party took one extra seat in New Territories East with a young barrister Eunice Yung who was supported by the Liaison Office. Another pro-Beijing candidate supported by the Liaison Office, independent lawyer Junius Ho, also won the last seat in New Territories West against Lee Cheuk-yan.

Candidate lists and results

The nominations received and validated by the Electoral Affairs Commission listed as following:

Geographical Constituencies (35 seats)

Voting system: Party-list proportional representation with largest remainder method and Hare quota.

District Council (Second) Functional Constituency (5 seats)

Voting system: Party-list proportional representation with largest remainder method and Hare quota.

Other Functional Constituencies (30 seats)

Voting systems: Different voting systems apply to different functional constituencies, namely for the Heung Yee Kuk, Agriculture and Fisheries, Insurance and Transport, the preferential elimination system of voting was used; and for the remaining 24 FCs the first-past-the-post voting system.

Aftermath

New People's Party chairwoman Regina Ip's car was caught driving out from the Liaison Office few hours after the election. Ip initially told Ming Pao her car was at the Liaison Office because she was sending some books she wrote to her friends there. She later admitted she lied about it as she "was requested by the other party to keep the meeting confidential". She also denied that she went there to thank Beijing for its support in the election. She was criticised as the pan-democrats had been accusing the Liaison Office for meddling in local politics and elections.

Rosanda Mok of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood and Erica Yuen of the People Power resigned as chairwoman after the parties' election defeats. Gary Fan who lost Neo Democrats' only seat in the legislature also resigned from the party's executive committee. Three Neo Democrats' Sha Tin District Councillors, Yau Man-chun, Billy Chan Shiu-yeung and Sunny Chiu Chu-pong, who campaigned for another pro-democrat Andrew Cheng without the party’s consent were expelled from the party after the election. Fan criticised Cheng, Fan's mentor, for splitting the votes and causing his defeat.

Benny Tai's tactical voting plan ThunderGo was also blamed for causing the losses of the veteran pan-democrats, including Labour Party's Lee Cheuk-yan, as well as Civic Passion's Wong Yeung-tat, in whom the plan advise to drop to make way for League of Social Democrats' Wong Ho-ming and People Power's Tam Tak-chi in New Territories West and Kowloon East respectively. The seats were eventually won by pro-Beijing independents Junius Ho and Paul Tse and those constituencies. Benny Tai said the root of the matter was the fragmenting of the opposition camp, leading to many candidate lists which led to the need for tactical voting.

After the election, nonpartisan Eddie Chu, who was widely known for taking on the Heung Yee Kuk over the its land rights, complained of "imminent" death threats against him and his family. Chu’s campaign drew public attention to the long-time allegations of collusion between the government, business, landlords and triads behind the Wang Chau housing project, which made the government to scale down the housing project from 17,000 flats to only 4,000 due to the pressure from the powerful rural leader Tsang Shu-wo who owned the brownfield land in Wang Chau. He was placed under round-the-clock protection by the police days after the election. The incident escalated into the a major political crisis in the following weeks as the government was questioned over the alleged collusion.

On 8 September, Chan Ho-tin of the Hong Kong National Party (HKNP) who was disqualified from standing in the election challenged the government through an election petition. Edward Leung of Hong Kong Indigenous also filed his legal petition over his disqualification on 7 October.