Beijing and the pro-establishment Hong Kong government have claimed that the city’s pro-democracy opposition camp may have violated the communist party’s newly-implemented national security law by holding their primary polls over the weekend.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam in a press conference on Monday accused the primary elections as “causing unfairness” to the legislative elections in September and warned people not to take part in activities that could “interfere, disrupt, [or] cause confusion” to the upcoming elections.
The elections for members of the Legislative Council (LegCo) are currently scheduled for Sept. 6, when all 70 seats are up for vote. The primary elections for the pro-democracy camp, organized by local political association Power for Democracy, were aimed at selecting the most promising candidates for the opposition as it hopes to win a majority of more than 35 seats in LegCo.
Over 600,000 Hong Kong citizens cast ballots over the weekend—a turnout much higher than the organizer had originally predicted. The large voter turnout is widely viewed as a symbolic protest vote against the national security law, which Beijing formally adopted for the city after ceremonial votes at the communist party’s National People’s Congress on June 30.
David Adams