China has declared primaries held by Hong Kong’s pro-democracy parties at the weekend “illegal” and the territory’s leader has announced an investigation, saying that the candidates’ intention to vote against government legislation could contravene national security legislation.
The primary polls, while not a formal part of Hong Kong’s election process, drew an estimated 610,000 people out to vote for pro-democracy candidates ahead of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) elections scheduled for September.
The extraordinary turnout in the face of warnings by authorities was interpreted by observers as an act of opposition to the national security legislation imposed by Beijing on June 30.
Photo: AFP
As the pro-democracy protest movement continued throughout last year and an unprecedented number of pro-democracy candidates were voted in at district council elections, there has been growing confidence that the pro-Beijing members in the LegCo could be sent into minority.
With the primaries, organizers sought to determine a shortlist of candidates to avoid splitting the votes.
Late on Monday, Beijing’s top representatives in Hong Kong labeled the primaries “illegal” and accused organizers of colluding with foreign powers in a “serious provocation” of Hong Kong’s electoral system and to seize the private data of voters.
“The goal of organizer Benny Tai (戴耀廷) and the opposition camp is to seize the ruling power of Hong Kong and ... carry out a Hong Kong version of ‘color revolution,’” said a spokesman for the Hong Kong Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, whose chief is also in charge of implementing the national security legislation.
The statement came in support of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥), who said that democrats coordinating to win a majority and veto the government’s budget could be against the anti-sedition laws, and would be investigated.
“If this so-called ‘primary’ election’s purpose is to achieve the ultimate goal of delivering what they call a ‘35+’ [majority seats] with the objective of objecting to, resisting every policy initiative of the Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region] government, then it may fall into the category of subverting the state power, which is now one of the four types of offenses under the new National Security Law,” Lam told media late on Monday.
Lam said that she was not saying the primaries did contravene the law, but warned that if an investigation proved as much “there is certainly a case to answer.”
Legal academic and an organizer of the primaries and the 2014 Occupy Central protests, Tai, said that LegCo’s power to veto the budget was enshrined in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
“How can a power that is recognized by the Basic Law be breaching the national security legislation?” he asked.
Preliminary results from the primary polls showed favorable results for candidates who were younger, pro-self determination or localist, and those who had high profiles during the protest movement, including Joshua Wong (黃之鋒).
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