Initial results from Sunday’s election in Hong Kong indicate that pro-democracy forces have handed Chinese ruler Xi Jinping a stunning setback. Pro-Beijing candidates are going down to defeat in District Council elections, the first real test of sentiment in the territory since protests began in April over the introduction of a bill authorizing extraditions to mainland China.
So far, pro-Dems have won 88.6 percent of the vote for 452 seats on 18 District Council boards. They have so far taken 351 seats versus 45 for the “establishment” forces. “Absolute political annihilation for the pro-Beijing camp” is how Stephen McDonell, a BBC China correspondent, described the result on Twitter. Tom Mitchell of the Financial Times called it a “Himalayan-sized avalanche.”
Turnout was a record 71.2 percent, well ahead of the previous high mark of 47.1 percent set in 2015, the year after the 79-day “Occupy” protests. A record 4.13 million people, in a region of 7.40 million, were registered to vote this year.
The District Councils, responsible for routine municipal services, have little power, but the Sunday elections took on significance, widely seen as a referendum on various matters because they are the only government bodies in Hong Kong whose members are elected by universal suffrage. “Sunday’s vote,” CNN noted on the eve of the election, “offers the first objective test of how people in the city feel about the protests and the government.”
#China‘s #XiJinping just annihilated his own allies in #HongKong: https://t.co/I89tnEk52g. Is he going to knock himself off next? #DistrictCouncilElection @TheNatlInterest
— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) November 25, 2019
I don’t recall where I saw it so can’t give proper credit, but one of the pundits referred to this as Beijing’s Kobayashi Maru scenario. The have no good options. If they crack down hard, it is Tiananmen Square all over in world opinion. If they don’t, there are many groups under their control which will begin to “get ideas.”