Hong Kong district council election: city’s John Lee says officials ‘doing all we can’ to get people voting

Hong Kong’s leader on Tuesday said officials were doing everything they could to get residents to vote in the coming district council election, but sidestepped a question on whether a low turnout could hurt the legitimacy of the revamped municipal-level poll.

Speaking ahead of the weekly Executive Council meeting, city leader John Lee Ka-chiu also said the overhaul of the municipal bodies would help the government better understand people’s needs, calling on civil servants to serve as an example by going out to vote.

“We have been doing all we can to [encourage] people to come out to vote,” he said. “It will ensure improved administration of district affairs, resulting in good districts for us to enjoy.”

In a bid to get more people to take part in the poll on December 10, authorities earlier this month said they would set up two voting stations in Sheung Shui to ensure locals living over the border could get involved.

The government tasked the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau with taking the lead in ramping up election promotion efforts by working alongside the Information Services Department. Officials have also taken to social media to publicise the poll.

The poll will be the first since the government revamped the district council earlier this year as part of a series of electoral overhauls under Beijing’s “patriots-only” governance model.

The district council election in 2019 saw a record overall turnout of 71.2 per cent, with the city’s opposition camp securing a landslide victory at the height of anti-government protests that year.

However, some pundits and politicians have said they expect a poor turnout for the first poll since the shake-up.

The Hong Kong government is going all out to promote the coming district council election. Photo: Martin Chan

Lee on Tuesday sidestepped a question on whether a low turnout would discredit the overhauled system and said its merits would be shown by the process itself and the new councils’ outcome delivery.

“We will have expectations of the district council members’ performance and there will be processes, not just [for] the public to monitor their performance, but the system itself will have a monitoring system, so that the elected district council members will do their duty dutifully,” he said.

Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak Mei-kuen earlier downplayed the importance of the turnout and said many factors could affect the number of residents going out to vote.

Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang Kwok-wai had also said that election turnout was not necessarily an indicator of success.

However, Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk Wing-hing on Saturday said the metric was important and said candidates needed to secure the public’s recognition and endorsement.

Lee on Tuesday also called on civil servants to get out and vote on December 10 and said more than 30,000 government employees were involved in election-related duties.

Civil servants had a responsibility to support and implement the poll, which was an important governance measure, he added.