World powers on Monday condemned Hong’s Kong tightly vetted Legislative Council election, saying rules imposed by Beijing that reduced directly elected seats and controlled who could stand had eroded democracy in the territory.
Figures showed just 30 percent of the electorate cast ballots, the lowest rate both of the period since the territory’s 1997 handover to China and the British colonial era.
Turnout at the last legislature polls in 2016 was 58 percent, while the 2019 district council elections, when democracy advocates won a landslide, saw a record 71 percent.
Photo: Reuters
The foreign ministers of the G7 expressed “grave concern over the erosion of democratic elements” in Hong Kong’s electoral system after the poll.
The new vetting process “to severely restrict the choice of candidates on the ballot paper undermined Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy” under the principle of “one country, two systems” agreed for the handover of the territory from the UK to China in 1997, they said.
The foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US called on China “to restore confidence in Hong Kong’s political institutions and end the unwarranted oppression of those who promote democratic values, and the defense of rights and freedoms.”
High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said in a statement that the poll was “yet another step in the dismantling” of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle and called for a “high degree of autonomy, as well as respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democratic principles and the rule of law” in Hong Kong.
In an earlier statement, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had rebuked the new system in even stronger language, saying “these changes eliminated any meaningful political opposition.”
“We also remain gravely concerned at the wider chilling effect of the National Security Law and the growing restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, which are being felt across civil society,” the five Western allies said.
Hong Kong has never been a full democracy under either the UK or China, the source of years of protests, but Beijing’s crackdown and political reforms mean Hong Kongers have less say in who runs their territory than they used to.
Most of the territory’s prominent democracy advocates — including many former legislators — are either in jail, in exile or disqualified from standing.
Former Hong Kong legislator Nathan Law (羅冠聰), who is now living in the UK and is wanted by the Hong Kong government, called the weekend’s vote a “fake election.”
“The boycott from Hong Kong people shows there’s no mandate to this legislature,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday.
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