Hong Kong held its Legislative Council election as scheduled, 11 days after a deadly high-rise apartment fire, amid a somber mood. This was the second Legislative Council election since China in 2021 set a condition allowing only "patriots" to run.
On the 7th, Hong Kong conducted voting for the Legislative Council election for 16 hours from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. As of 10:30 p.m., turnout was 31.43%, surpassing the 30.2% turnout in the 2021 election. Turnout in the Northeast New Territories constituency, which includes Tai Po where the fire disaster occurred, was 29.72%, the only one below 30% among the 10 constituencies.
However, Hong Kong authorities extended the voting time by two hours for this election, and if votes cast up to 11:30 p.m. are reflected, the final turnout is expected to be higher.
A total of 161 candidates ran in this election to choose 90 members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. Twenty seats are directly elected by residents in 10 geographical constituencies, and the Election Committee picks 40 seats. The remaining 30 are functional constituency seats chosen through industry-based indirect elections.
With the pro-Beijing camp dominating the Election Committee, there were no candidates categorized as opposition in this election. On Feb. the Democratic Party, the No. 1 opposition party, decided to disband, and in Jun. even the last remaining opposition, the League of Social Democrats (LSD), disbanded, eliminating the "official" pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong. Including moderate politicians, 35 people, or 40% of incumbent lawmakers, did not run this time.
Turnout for Legislative Council elections, which had exceeded 50%—53.05% in 2012 and 58.28% in 2016—fell to 30.2% in Dec. 2021 after the introduction of the "patriots-only" system. Turnout in the district council elections in Dec. 2023 was 27.5%, the lowest among all elections ever held in Hong Kong.
In this election, the Hong Kong government sought to boost turnout by extending voting hours, adding polling stations, encouraging voting leave, and promoting shop discounts. At the same time, authorities arrested 11 citizens who urged people to abstain or cast invalid ballots, and summoned foreign media outlets to warn them not to engage in "false or distorted reporting" related to the fire disaster, contributing to what was seen as a tightly controlled atmosphere.