Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties sweeping aside pro-Beijing establishment in local elections.
HONG KONG — Early results from Hong Kong district council elections on Sunday showed a surge of support for pro-democracy parties on Monday in what appeared to be a significant endorsement of the protest movement and an indictment of the pro-Beijing establishment seen by many as responsible for months of unrest in the city.
Voters took to the polls in record numbers to cast ballots in the only fully democratic election in the Chinese territory, an early sign they wanted to send a strong message to their government and to the Communist Party in Beijing.
Early results compiled by the South China Morning Post showed pro-democracy parties taking 108 of the first 120 seats to be declared, and pro-Beijing parties taking just 12. Several prominent figures in the protest movement won; several pro-establishment figures were unseated.
The turnout — more than 69 percent of the 4.13 million eligible voters had cast ballots an hour before polls closed — was significantly higher than the 1.4 million who voted in local elections in 2015. Voter registration was also a record high, driven in part by 390,000 first-time voters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/record-turnout-in-hong-kong-election-seen-as-a-referendum-on-the-pro-democracy-protest-movement/2019/11/24/31804b00-0df5-11ea-8054-289aef6e38a3_story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
