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===Ballot-rigging===
===Ballot-rigging===
Following the [[Hong Kong local elections, 2011|last election in 2011]], pan-democrats have complained of irregularities in voter registration records, and a number of candidates who lost in marginal seats made allegations of electoral fraud to the police. The government was criticised for failing to address the issue back in 2006 after alleged instances where multiple voters had registered under a same address surfaced. Before the last day for voters to check and update their particulars in order to vote in November, and for the public to report suspicious cases, the pan-democratic parties lodged a flood of complaints to the Registration and Electoral Office on 24 August 2015 about the records of over 550 voters with suspicious or false residential addresses on the eve of the election, and warning they could be "the tip of the iceberg".<ref>{{cite news|title='Tip of the iceberg': Warning from pan-democratic parties over 400 suspicious Hong Kong voter records|first=Kang-chung|last=Ng|date=25 August 2015|newspaper=South China Morning Post|url=http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1852448/400-more-suspicious-hong-kong-voter-records-tip-iceberg-pan}}</ref>
Following the [[Hong Kong local elections, 2011|last election in 2011]], pan-democrats have complained of irregularities in voter registration records, and a number of candidates who lost in marginal seats made allegations of electoral fraud to the police. The government was criticised for failing to address the issue back in 2006 after alleged instances where multiple voters had registered under a same address surfaced. Before the last day for voters to check and update their particulars in order to vote in November, and for the public to report suspicious cases, the pan-democratic parties lodged a flood of complaints to the Registration and Electoral Office on 24 August 2015 about the records of over 550 voters with suspicious or false residential addresses on the eve of the election, and warning they could be "the tip of the iceberg".<ref>{{cite news|title='Tip of the iceberg': Warning from pan-democratic parties over 400 suspicious Hong Kong voter records|first=Kang-chung|last=Ng|date=25 August 2015|newspaper=South China Morning Post|url=http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1852448/400-more-suspicious-hong-kong-voter-records-tip-iceberg-pan}}</ref>

===Catholic bishop's anti-gay pastoral letter===
On 5 November 2015, the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong#Bishop|Catholic bishop of Hong Kong]] [[John Tong]] urged his flock to consider candidates' views on gay rights when voting in the district council elections in a pastoral letter, as certain social movements "are challenging and twisting" the city's core values on marriage and family. "In the upcoming district council election and future polls, I urge all believers … to consider candidates' and their parties' stance on family and marriage issues, as well as their position on" a law to ban discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, Tong wrote The pan-democratic parties - who have often found common cause with the Catholic Church on matters of democracy and human rights - criticised Tong's remarks. [[People Power (Hong Kong)|People Power]] legislator [[Raymond Chan Chi-chuen]], who is openly gay, criticised Tong's message and said it reflected a backward view of social movements and possibly deviated from the Vatican's line. A spokesman for the [[Labour Party (Hong Kong)|Labour Party]] said Tong's view was "obviously different" from the remarks of [[Pope Francis]], who in 2013 said: "If [homosexuals] accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn't be marginalised. The [homosexual] tendency is not the problem."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1876400/catholic-bishop-hong-kong-hits-out-gay-marriage-and-tells|title=Catholic bishop of Hong Kong hits out at gay marriage and tells flock to consider the issue before voting|newspaper=South China Morning Post|date=7 November 2015|first1=Tony|last1=Cheung|first2=Stuart|last2=Lau}}</ref>


==Contesting parties and candidates==
==Contesting parties and candidates==

Revision as of 14:12, 7 November 2015

Hong Kong local elections, 2015
← 2011 22 November 2015 2019 →
All Elected Constituencies
431 (of the 458) seats in all 18 Districts Councils
 
Leader Starry Lee Emily Lau Lam Suk-yee
Party DAB Democratic FTU
Alliance Pro-Beijing Pan-democracy Pro-Beijing
Last election 136 seats, 23.89% 47 seats, 17.42% 11 seats, 3.10%
Current seats 119 (elected seats) 42 29 (elected seats)
 
Leader Regina Ip Bruce Liu Andrew Leung
Party NPP ADPL BPA
Alliance Pro-Beijing Pan-democracy Pro-Beijing
Last election 19 seats, 4.30% 15 seats, 3.85% New party
Current seats 27 (elected seats) 16 16 (elected seats)

The 2015 Hong Kong District Council elections will be held on 22 November 2015.[1] Elections are to be held to all 18 District Councils of Hong Kong, returning 431 members from directly elected constituencies after all appointed seats will be abolished.

Boundary changes

As proposed in the Democratic Party's modified electoral reform package passed in 2010, all appointed seats will be abolished in this election. After a review on the number of elected seats for each District Council having regard to the population forecast in mid-2015, the Electoral Affairs Commission proposed to increase 19 elected seats in 9 District Councils:[2]

  1. 1 new seat for in each Tsuen Wan and North District Councils;
  2. 2 new seats for each Sham Shui Po, Kowloon City, Kwun Tong, Yau Tsim Mong and Sha Tin District Councils;
  3. 3 new seats for the Sai Kung District Council; and
  4. 4 new seats for the Yuen Long District Council.

The total number of elected seats for the 2015 elections was increased by 19 from 412 to 431. Additionally, the boundaries of the Eastern and Wan Chai Districts was adjusted by transferring the Tin Hau and Victoria Park district council constituency areas from the Eastern District to the Wan Chai District.

Pre-election events

Umbrella movement

Main articles: 2014 Hong Kong protests and Umbrella movement

The 2014 Hong Kong protests sparked a fierce tussle between the pan-democrats and pro-Beijing camp as the democrats hailed a "civic awakening" while the pro-Beijing camp mobilised supporters to condemn the 79-day street blockade as an affront to the rule of law. The November District Council election is to be seen as the first big electoral test of the post-Occupy era. Both camps say events to come will have a bigger effect on voters, while the extent to which a political awakening among the city's youth will lead them to turn out to vote remains unclear. The pan-democrats encourage young people who participated in the Occupy movement to register and vote in the district council poll.[3]

Lead-in-water scandal

Main article: 2015 Hong Kong heavy metal in drinking water incidents

The lead-in-water scandal began in June 2015 when the Democratic Party legislator, Helena Wong Pik-wan announced that testing of drinking water at Kai Ching Estate in Kowloon revealed lead contamination.[4] The Hong Kong Housing Authority subsequently confirmed that the levels of lead exceeded the standard established by the World Health Organisation.[4] Since the initial discovery at Kai Tak, lead contamination of drinking water has been found at numerous other housing estates, schools, and public buildings across Hong Kong. The lead contamination scandal caused widespread concern among the public in which the Democratic Party made a major comeback by being the first to reveal the scandal while the pro-Beijing camp was told to downplay the issue.[5]

Ballot-rigging

Following the last election in 2011, pan-democrats have complained of irregularities in voter registration records, and a number of candidates who lost in marginal seats made allegations of electoral fraud to the police. The government was criticised for failing to address the issue back in 2006 after alleged instances where multiple voters had registered under a same address surfaced. Before the last day for voters to check and update their particulars in order to vote in November, and for the public to report suspicious cases, the pan-democratic parties lodged a flood of complaints to the Registration and Electoral Office on 24 August 2015 about the records of over 550 voters with suspicious or false residential addresses on the eve of the election, and warning they could be "the tip of the iceberg".[6]

Catholic bishop's anti-gay pastoral letter

On 5 November 2015, the Catholic bishop of Hong Kong John Tong urged his flock to consider candidates' views on gay rights when voting in the district council elections in a pastoral letter, as certain social movements "are challenging and twisting" the city's core values on marriage and family. "In the upcoming district council election and future polls, I urge all believers … to consider candidates' and their parties' stance on family and marriage issues, as well as their position on" a law to ban discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, Tong wrote The pan-democratic parties - who have often found common cause with the Catholic Church on matters of democracy and human rights - criticised Tong's remarks. People Power legislator Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, who is openly gay, criticised Tong's message and said it reflected a backward view of social movements and possibly deviated from the Vatican's line. A spokesman for the Labour Party said Tong's view was "obviously different" from the remarks of Pope Francis, who in 2013 said: "If [homosexuals] accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn't be marginalised. The [homosexual] tendency is not the problem."[7]

Contesting parties and candidates

Parties

In the pro-Beijing camp, the flagship party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) filled a total of 171 candidates in the contest, followed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions with a total of 51 candidates of which 3 of them were also DAB members. The two relatively new pro-Beijing parties, the middle-class-oriented New People's Party (NPP) and the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) developed their forces at district level since their creations in 2011 and 2012 respectively. The New People's Party got 4 of the 12 candidates elected in 2011 and at least eight incumbent councillors had since joined the party, while a merger with Civil Force, a local political group with strongholds in the New Territories East, brought the number up to 30.[8] The NPP had a total of 42 contestants while the BPA had 16, slightly fewer than another pro-business party, the Liberal Party's 20 which four of the Liberal candidates failed to avoid direct competition with other pro-Beijing parties and would have to fight a fellow pro-Beijing candidate.[9]

The largest pro-democratic party Democratic Party filled 95 candidates, a sharp decline from the 2011 election's 132. The Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) came after the Democrats with 26 candidates, followed by the Civic Party's 25, Neo Democrats's 16, Labour Party's 12, People Power's 9, Neighbourhood and Workers Service Centre's 6 and League of Social Democrats's 5. Many new pro-democracy groups formed by young people after the Occupy movement, including the Youngspiration, the Tsz Wan Shan Constructive Power, which aimed at Wong Tai Sin District Council, the North of the Rings, which worked in Sheung Shui and Fanling in North District, the East Kowloon Community which had its eyes on Kwun Tong District Council, and some other groups. More than 40 activists were running in the district council elections and some of them were with the "nativist" agenda.[10] While most Umbrella candidates have joined a co-ordination mechanism run by pan-democratic parties to avoid clashes between allies, six of them refused to do so and are running against the Democratic Party in areas where the party has had a close fight with the pro-establishment camp in previous elections.[11]

Candidates

A record-high 951 nominations were received for which six nominees withdrew their candidatures before the deadline. A total of 66 seats were uncontested, 10 less than in 2011, in which almost all of them went to the pro-Beijing camp. The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong claimed 20 unclaimed seats, followed by New People's Party with seven and the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) with six seats, while the Liberal Party took two. Two Legislative Council members Alice Mak Mei-kuen and Kwok Wai-keung of the FTU in Kwai Tsing's Wai Ying and Eastern District's Provident retained their seats without contest.[12]

The Legislative Council members elected through District Council (Second) constituency in 2012, the former chairman of the Democratic Party Albert Ho Chun-yan and former chairman of the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) Frederick Fung Kin-kee faced fierce challenges in their Tuen Mun's Lok Tsui and Sham Shui Po's Lai Kok constituencies. Ho faced 5 rivals including former president of the Law Society of Hong Kong Junius Ho Kwan-yiu, radical democratic group Civic Passion's Cheng Chung-tai and three other independent candidates. Fung faced his former party member Eric Wong Chung-ki and FTU's Chan Wing-yan.[12] Another District Council (Second) legislator, FTU's Chan Yuen-han and District Council (First) legislator, DAB's Ip Kwok-him are stepping down from Wong Tai Sin's Lung Sheung and Central and Western District's Kwun Lung, meaning that they will retire from their constituencies in next year's Legislative Council election.

Campaign slogans

Party English Chinese
bgcolor="Template:Civic Party/meta/color" | Civic Party — 「社區自主。撐起香港」[13]
bgcolor="Template:DABHK/meta/color" | Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong "Serving You with Sincerity and Dedication."[14] 「實事求是，為您做事」
bgcolor="Template:DPHK/meta/color" | Democratic Party "Giving It All."[15] 「為香港搏盡」
bgcolor="Template:HKFTU/meta/color" | Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions — 「撐勞工．為基層」[16]
bgcolor="Template:League of Social Democrats/meta/color" | League of Social Democrats — 「反對操弄，雨傘起動！你我齊投票，踢走保皇黨！ 」[17]
bgcolor="Template:NPPHK/meta/color" | New People's Party — 「新民黨，講真話，做實事，反拉布，穩經濟，重建設，振人心」[18]
bgcolor="Template:Youngspiration/meta/color" | Youngspiration "Hongkongers Let's Win This Together" 「香港人 一齊贏一次」

Results

For results by constituency, see Results breakdown of the Hong Kong local elections, 2015.

Template:Hong Kong district councils election, 2015

Results by district

Council Previous control Previous party Camp control Largest party
Central and Western Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Wan Chai Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Eastern Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Southern Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #5FB04A;" data-sort-value="DPHK" |

Democratic
Yau Tsim Mong Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Sham Shui Po Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #faf400;" data-sort-value="HKADPL" |

ADPL
Kowloon City Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Wong Tai Sin Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Kwun Tong Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Tsuen Wan Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Tuen Mun Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Yuen Long Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
North Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Tai Po Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Sai Kung Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB
Sha Tin Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1C8BCD;" data-sort-value="New People's Party–Civil Force" |

NPP/CF
Kwai Tsing Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #5FB04A;" data-sort-value="DPHK" |

Democratic
Islands Pro-Beijing

style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #1861AC;" data-sort-value="DABHK" |

DAB

References

  1. ^ "Polling date for 2015 District Council ordinary election published". Hong Kong Government. 13 March 2015.
  2. ^ "Report on the Recommended Constituency Boundaries for the 2015 District Council Election" (PDF). Electoral Affairs Commission. 5 November 2014.
  3. ^ Cheung, Tony (2 February 2015). "How will Hong Kong pro-democracy protests affect district elections?". South China Morning Post.
  4. ^ a b Lo, Arthur (13 July 2015). "Explainer: How the water lead contamination scare became a citywide concern". Hong Kong Free Press.
  5. ^ Lai, Chak-fun (23 July 2015). "Why it's time for the opposition to mount a major offensive". ejinsight.
  6. ^ Ng, Kang-chung (25 August 2015). "'Tip of the iceberg': Warning from pan-democratic parties over 400 suspicious Hong Kong voter records". South China Morning Post.
  7. ^ Cheung, Tony; Lau, Stuart (7 November 2015). "Catholic bishop of Hong Kong hits out at gay marriage and tells flock to consider the issue before voting". South China Morning Post.
  8. ^ Cheung, Tony (5 April 2015). "Pro-establishment camp divided ahead of district council elections". South China Morning Post.
  9. ^ Lau, Stuart (22 October 2015). "Hong Kong's pro-establishment candidates face battle for share of vote in district council elections". South China Morning Post.
  10. ^ Ng, Joyce; Lau, Stuart (7 April 2015). "Hong Kong post-Occupy young bloods eye up district council elections". South China Morning Post.
  11. ^ Ng, Joyce (22 October 2015). "On the warpath: 'umbrella soldiers' challenge old guard in Hong Kong's district council elections". South China Morning Post.
  12. ^ a b Ng, Joyce; Lam, Jeffie (15 October 2015). "Hong Kong district council elections see record number of candidates in first citywide polls since Occupy movement". South China Morning Post.
  13. ^ "參選宣言". Civic Party.
  14. ^ "Platform". DAB.
  15. ^ "Giving It All". The Democratic Party.
  16. ^ "[2015-10-03] 「撐勞工．為基層」 工聯會區選誓師大會2015". Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions.
  17. ^ "反對操弄，雨傘起動！你我齊投票，踢走保皇黨！ 社會民主連線2015區議會選舉誓師大會新聞稿". League of Social Democrats.
  18. ^ "新民黨 參選2015年區議會選舉 誓師大會 派出四十二人參選". New People's Party.

External links

Official website

Manifestos and platforms

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