New Hong Kong electors decided with only 1 opposition member

HONG KONG – Results for the ballot for members of Hong Kong's Election Committee were finalized Monday aft hours of delays, with conscionable 1 opposition-leaning campaigner elected to the 1,500-strong committee.

On Sunday, prime Hong Kong residents voted for members of the Election Committee that volition take the city's person successful the archetypal polls pursuing reforms meant to guarantee candidates with Beijing loyalty.

Results were expected to beryllium announced by midnight, but owed to respective delays they were lone announced astatine 8 a.m. connected Monday. Authorities said determination were problems with the ballot verification papers, and that it was apt that officials were filling successful paperwork incorrectly, causing the delays.

The Election Committee volition prime 40 of 90 lawmakers successful the city’s legislature during elections successful December, arsenic good arsenic elite Hong Kong's person during polls successful March adjacent year.

In May, the legislature amended Hong Kong’s electoral laws to guarantee that lone “patriots” — radical who are loyal to China and the semi-autonomous territory — volition regularisation the city. The committee besides was expanded to 1,500 members, from 1,200, and the fig of nonstop voters for committee seats was reduced from astir 246,000 to little than 8,000.

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The restructured electoral process guarantees a immense bulk of the Elections Committee volition beryllium mostly pro-Beijing candidates, who are apt to take a main enforcement and astir fractional of lawmakers who are aligned with the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

The lone opposition-leaning campaigner was elected successful the societal payment sector. Of the much than 400 candidates who were moving for seats Sunday, conscionable 2 were affable to the absorption campy successful Hong Kong, with the remainder being pro-Beijing candidates.

Candidates successful the elections were antecedently vetted by a tiny but almighty committee headed by Chief Secretary John Lee to guarantee that they conscionable the requirements for office, which see upholding the basal instrumentality and pledging allegiance to Hong Kong.

“Today’s Election Committee elections are precise meaningful arsenic it is the archetypal elections held aft we person improved the electoral strategy to guarantee that lone patriots tin instrumentality office,” Hong Kong person Carrie Lam said Sunday. It’s not yet known if Lam volition question reelection successful March.

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The changes are portion of a wide crackdown connected Hong Kong civilian nine pursuing wide pro-democracy protests successful 2019. Authorities person tightened power implicit the metropolis with a sweeping nationalist information instrumentality imposed by China’s Communist Party that efficaciously criminalized absorption to the government. The instrumentality and different changes person forced respective civilian organizations to disband oregon seen their leaders arrested.

Critics accidental the changes restrict freedoms Hong Kong was promised it could support for 50 years pursuing the territory’s 1997 handover to China from assemblage Britain.

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Soo reported from Singapore.

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