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Elections in Hong Kong
Elections in Hong Kong
Legislative Elections
The Legislative Council has 60 members, of whom 30 are elected by popular vote in geographical constituencies, and 30 elected from functional constituencies (businessmen and professionals). In Hong Kong, legislative elections are held every four years, in years evenly divisible by four. The most recent election was held 7 September 2008. The next would presumably occur in September 2012.
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Electoral system
The 30 geographical seats of the Legislative Council are returned by proportional representation using the largest remainder method in each of five constituencies. This system encourages and sustains multiple political parties. Twenty-three of the 28 functional constituencies use single-member district plurality to elect their members, one (Labour) applies the block vote (with three seats to be filled), and four, dubbed special functional constituencies, use the preferential elimination system (aka instant-runoff voting).
District Council elections
There are eighteen districts, and thus eighteen district councils in Hong Kong, each being a city council for its district. There is one constituency for, on average, every 170,000 residents, as there are 400 constituencies and 6.8 million residents in Hong Kong. A member is elected from each constituency by simple plurality. Since one councillor is elected from each district, there are 400 legislators in the 18 district councils. The Chief Executive can appoint a maximum of 102 members to the councils, and the chairpersons of the 27 rural committees are ex officio members of the councils.
Elections are held in Hong Kong when certain offices in the government need to be filled. Every four years, the unicameral Legislative Council of Hong Kong’s sixty seats are filled by the electorate. Hong Kong has a multi-party system, with numerous parties in which no one party often has the chance of gaining power alone. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong is nonpartisan, but has to work with several parties to form (de facto) coalition governments.
Chief Executive elections
According to Article 46 of the constitution (Hong Kong Basic Law), elections for the Chief Executive are held every five years.
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The last was held in 2002, and with the resignation of Tung Chee Hwa an election would have been called on 10 July, had the election been contested. A controversial decision by the National People’s Congress stated that a resignation did not end a term, so that Donald Tsang would serve only until 2007, rather than 2010 had a term been deemed to begin with each resignation. This is in line with the practice on mainland China (see Hong Kong Basic Law Article 46). The 800-member Election Committee held a vote on a day specified by the sitting Chief Executive sometime during the six months of the year prior to the HKSAR’s Inauguration Day, 1 July. An absolute majority of the votes (ie. 401 votes) are required to be elected; if necessary, a runoff is held between the two top candidates (in terms of electoral votes) on a later date. In 1997, Tung Chee Hwa was elected with eighty percent of the electoral votes against two other candidates, Mr. Peter Woo (???) and Sir Ti Liang Yang (???). In 2002, Tung was reelected uncontested, as he had received 713 signatures of support in the Electoral Committee, and 100 are required for nomination.(Annex I, Section 4, Basic Law) The 2005 election provided a sense of déjà vu for many, as Donald Tsang cruised to victory with 674 nomination signatures out of a possible 796 (four seats were vacant).
Elections in Hong Kong
system that was averted when Tsang was the only candidate nominated. The problem was that the timing is crucial for the new Chief Executive election after Tung Chee Hwa’s resignation on 12 March 2005. Since electoral law states that an election must be held 120 days after the vacancy, an election would be held on the tenth of July. It was unclear as to the exact time period separating the election and the date of taking of office for this Election Committee. If the new EC convened prior to the Chief Executive election, it would be applied to select the next Chief Executive, but otherwise the old Election Committee dating from 2000 would have to complete the task (see Hong Kong Chief Executive election, 2005 for more information on the topic). The second round produces a further dispute, if the term of the old EC ended after the first round of voting but before the second. It would be rather unsensible to use different electors for the two rounds; the same one would probably have to be prescribed.
Elections of the delegates to the National People’s Congress of the PRC
to be added
The Election Committee
An 800-member electoral college called the Election Committee is elected by businessmen and professionals (those eligible for functional constituencies, with less than 180 000 eligible voters), with each of the twentyeight sectors of the economy receiving a set number of electoral votes. The eligible voters in each sector vote directly for the electors, who in turn cast ballots for Chief Executive. Before 2004, the Electoral College also selected certain members of LegCo by block vote, but this practice has been abolished, in accordance with Ann. 2, Sect. 1, of the Basic Law, and all seats are elected either by universal suffrage or the business elite. The EC elections are quite irregular. They were held in 1998 and 2000, but none (except for the 2002 by-election) have been held since. The claim in Ann. 1, Sect. 2, of the Basic Law, saying that the Election Committee must be renewed at least once every five years, exposed an interesting flaw in the
Village Representative elections
The Court of Final Appeal ruled the Secretary for Home Affairs had to consider whether the person elected to represent a village was elected in accordance with electoral arrangements consistent with the Bill of Rights and the Sex Discrimination Ordinance whether to approve an elected Village Representative in December 2000. This decision caused Hong Kong Government to set up new arrangements for Village Representative. There are two types of Village Representatives, namely (i) Indigenous Inhabitant Representative representing indigenous inhabitants* of an Indigenous Village; and (ii) Resident Representative representing all residents of an Existing Village • Indigenous Inhabitant --
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in relation to an Indigenous Village that existed in 1898 (whether or not the name the Village now has is the same name it had in 1898) means (i) a person who was in 1898 a resident of the Village; or (ii) a person who is descended through the male line from a person mentioned in (i). The first new arrangements Village Representative elections was held in 2003. The next Village Representative elections were held in 2007. PanDemocrats
Elections in Hong Kong
Democratic Party Civic Party League of Social Democrats 312,692 206,980 153,390 20.63% 13.66% 10.1% 2.8% 7 4 3 1
Neighbourhood 42,441 and Workers Service Centre of Senators Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions 42,366
2.8%
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Latest elections
2007 Chief Executive election
English Chinese Position Name Name Donald Tsang Alan Leong ??? ??? Votes
Incumbent 649 Chief Executive Civic Party legislator 123
Hong Kong As- 42,211 sociation for Democracy and People’s Livelihood The Frontier Civic Act-up Pro-democracy individuals and others 33,205 30,887 5,293
2.79%
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2.19% 2.04% 0.35%
1 1 0
2008 Legislative election
869,465 57.37% 19 Total for Summary of the 7 September 2008 Legislative Council of Hong Kong election results (58.99%) pandemocrats Parties Votes % Geographical Functional Total +/constituencies constituencies seats Pro-Beijing Democratic Al- 397,747 26.25% 9 liance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong Liberal Party Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions The Alliance (Hong Kong) Pro-Beijing individuals and others Total for pro-Beijing camp Independent Councillors without formal affiliation with any political party Total (turnout 45%) 65,622 0 4.33% 0% 0 0
0 85,531
0% 5.64%
0 1
604,751
39.90% 10 (41.01%) 4.04% 1
61,177
1,515,479 100.0
30
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source: Hong Kong government
Elections in Hong Kong
Note: Candidates in 14 functional constituencies were "???13? ??????" (in Traditional [1] ^ elected uncontested to the Legislative Council. The number of seats for the Federation of Trade Chinese). Wengeographical constituencies exUnions in the Wei Po. 8 September clude Wong Kwok-hing, Wong Kwok-kin and Pan Pey Chyou, who are also DAB members; figures in 2008. http://paper.wenweipo.com/2008/ parentheses in the pro-democracy and pro-Beijing total percentage exclude all votes of other 09/09/YO0809090004.htm. Retrieved on individuals. 8 September 2008.
References
Past elections
By-elections
• • • • • Hong Kong Island by-election, 2007 Hong Kong Island by-election, 2000 Kowloon Central by-election, 1995 New Territories West by-election, 1992 New Territories West by-election, 1991
[2] Ambrose Leung (12 September 2008). "Heung Yee Kuk chairman quits Liberal Party". South China Morning Post. [3] Ambrose Leung (9 October 2008). "And then there were three: Legco Liberals quit over leadership fight". South China Morning Post.
External links
• Hong Kong Government Website • Adam Carr’s Election Archive • Elections in Hong Kong/ Roland Nicholson, Jr. • Previous election results by Lingnan University • Official site for the 2004 LegCo elections • Web Site of the Electoral Affairs Commission
See also
• • • • Electoral calendar Politics of Hong Kong List of constituencies of Hong Kong Election
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