Can Hong Kong’s pan-democrats rise to the challenge of the localist trend?
John Chan says with voter support for the pro-establishment camp holding steady, the democratic camp’s majority in the geographical constituencies in the legislature is under threat
If the University of Hong Kong opinion polls can be believed, voter preferences for the five “super seats” in Sunday’s Legislative Council election signal a rise in overall support for the pro-establishment camp. The Beijing-friendly camp now commands 45 per cent of the vote share, compared with the widely believed 40 per cent in the past.
The HKU’s public opinion programme has, of course, been criticised for basing its rolling opinion surveys on a too-small sample size (no more than 200 in each geographical constituency), but I think the results of the “super seat” survey – which are based on the combined samples of all five geographical constituencies – are reliable.
The survey shows a steady trend of between 43 and 47 per cent support for the three lists of pro-establishment candidates in the district council (second) functional constituency, the so-called super seats. In 2012, the camp won about 45 per cent of valid votes.
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One difference is: seven lists of candidates competed for the super seats in 2012; today, there are nine lists. In 2012, the three lists of pan-democratic candidates secured 51 per cent of the votes. This time, there are as many as six lists of pan-democratic candidates. Whether or not the democratic camp can win three seats will depend on whether the Democrats can shift the abundant support votes for James To Kun-sun to fellow Democrat Roy Kwong Chun-yu.
