Hong Kong’s pan-democrats might find their missing by-election voters among indifferent young people

John Chan says behind the low voter turnout that cost the pan-democrats dearly in Sunday’s Legislative Council by-election are young people who were too indifferent to the poll to vote

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Pan-democrat candidates (left to right) Edward Yiu, Gary Fan, Au Nok-hin and Paul Zimmerman wait for the results of the Legislative Council by-election at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai on March 12. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 1:39pm, 15 Mar 2018Updated: 6:33pm, 15 Mar 2018

Sunday’s by-election was a setback for Hong Kong pan-democrats’ bid to regain all four Legislative Council seats vacated by disqualified lawmakers. Pan-democrat candidates won back only two of the three geographical constituency seats. The greatest surprise was the failure of Edward Yiu Chung-yim’s bid to win the Kowloon West seat, which has traditionally been a pan-democrat stronghold.

It is generally accepted that the pan-democrats can gain up to 60 per cent of the vote in the geographical constituencies in any election. Thus pan-democrats blamed the low voter turnout for their failed bid in Kowloon West and their narrow wins on Hong Kong Island and New Territories East.

In Sunday’s by-election, the three geographical constituencies had an overall turnout rate of 43.13 per cent, compared to a turnout of 58.28 per cent in the 2016 general election – a drop of 15 percentage points.

While pan-democrats have blamed the low turnout for their poor showing, they should not overlook one reason behind the decline – the pan-democratic camp is not as united as it appeared to be.

So where are these “missing” voters?

Take Kowloon West, for example. In the 2016 general election, seven key pan-democratic political groups – League of Social Democrats, Civic Party, Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood, Proletariat Political Institute, Democratic Party, Democracy Groundwork (Lau Siu-lai) and Youngspiration – garnered 159,599 votes, or 57.23 per cent of the 278,871 votes cast in the constituency. Yet in Sunday’s by-election, only 105,056 pan-democratic supporters voted for Edward Yiu. More than one-third of the voters who voted for pan-democratic candidates in that constituency in 2016 did not support Yiu in this by-election. Why?

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Similarly, on Hong Kong Island, eight key pan-democratic players – Path of Democracy, People Power, Labour Party, Civic Passion, Demosisto, Democratic Party, Civic Party and the independent candidate Paul Zimmerman – garnered 190,506 votes of the total 376,577 votes cast on the island in 2016, representing 50.5 per cent of its total turnout. Yet in the by-election, the winner Au Nok-hin received only 137,181 votes. Where were the other 53,325 voters who voted for pan-democratic candidates?