Eunice Lam
Voter turnout at tomorrow’s District Council election will depend greatly on the pro-establishment camp’s ability to mobilize its supporters and the stance of neutral voters, a pundit said, as CK Hutchison chairman Victor Li Tzar-kuoi called on voters to come out and vote.
It will be the first election under the revamped electoral system where 4.13 million registered voters will elect 88 out of 171 candidates in the geographical constituency and 176 seats out of 228 candidates in indirection election.
The “all patriots” election came after the landslide victory of the pro-democracy camp in the 2019 polls.
Polling stations will open at 8.30am and will go on for 14 hours for the directly-elected geographical constituency seats until 10.30pm. The election for indirectly-elected seats will end at 2.30pm.
Li said: “I will cast my vote on December 10. I hope everybody will vote enthusiastically and wish for a successful election campaign!”
Political commentator Andrew Fung Ho-keung, from the Hong Kong Policy Research Institute, said civil servants, the elderly and Hongkongers living on the mainland have been the government’s targets in the campaign to woo voters.
In the past two District Council elections, the pro-establishment camp saw 800,000 votes in 2015 and 1.2 million votes in 2019, which accounted for 20 to 30 percent of the overall votes.
Fung thought the election lacked a controversial issue for candidates and rival parties to debate on, so “the eventual voter turnout will depend on how many pro-establishment supporters the camp is able to mobilize since those who support the opposition camp are less willing to vote, and some of them have even migrated from Hong Kong. So now, the key is, whether those neutral voters will cast their ballots.”
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang Kwok-wai said a team under his bureau has already been patrolling the internet for misinformation about the election and will promptly make clarifications when needed.
Tsang said the team is mainly composed of dozens of officers from his bureau as well as those from the Registration and Electoral Office and the Information Services Department.
Meanwhile, police said it would deploy 12,000 officers tomorrow to prevent any potential disruptions to over 600 polling stations. Sources said two uniformed officers would be posted to each polling station, while others would carry out car patrols within the area in teams of five to six.
About 2,500 officers – including plain-clothed police, the Police Tactical Unit and Counter Terrorism Response Unit – will be dispatched in each police region, the source added.
This means that over one-third of the force’s 33,288 manpower will be deployed – compared to some 10,000 officers deployed in the Legislative Council election 2021, and 7,000 at the Chief Executive poll in May last year.
The source believed several of these quick response teams would take action within minutes if there was a disruption at a polling station.
Hundreds of auxiliary officers would also be deployed to carry out “election-related duties” as well as supporting officers from patrol sub-units, while patrolling officers would be equipped with stab-proof vests, the source added.
Patrols will also be carried out in vehicles around polling stations from 10pm today, with the full team ready as early as 7am tomorrow.
And police earlier said they would carry out random and high-profile counter-terrorism patrols at important infrastructures and densely populated areas.
eunice.lam@singtaonewscorp.com
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