This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sunday’s district council election was the first held under new rules introduced under Beijing’s direction that effectively shut out all pro-democracy candidates.
Sunday’s turnout was significantly less than the record 71.2% of Hong Kong’s 4.3 million registered voters who participated in the last election, held at the height of anti-government protests in 2019, which the pro-democracy camp won by a landslide.
Lee said there was resistance to Sunday’s election from prospective candidates who were rejected under the new rules for being not qualified or lacking the principles of “patriots” administering Hong Kong.
“The de facto boycott indicates low public acceptance of the new electoral arrangement and its democratic representativeness,” Dominic Chiu, senior analyst at research firm Eurasia Group, wrote in a note.
Chiu said the low turnout represents a silent protest against the shrinking of civil liberties in the city following Beijing’s imposition of a tough national security law that makes it difficult to express opposition.
“Against this backdrop, the public took the elections as a rare opportunity to make their opposition to the new normal known — by not turning up to vote,” he said.
The original article contains 428 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Ah yes. The best way to silently protest your civil liberties being taken away is not using the most important one. Brilliant!
These are sham elections where every candidate even mildly critical of the government has been disqualified. Your criticism is groundless and uninformed.
Voting doesn’t mean much when the CCP decides who you can vote for unfortunately.
There have been documentaries made about the protests and fighting of the Hong Kong people in an effort to keep their civil liberties. I don’t think any of us can fairly say they haven’t done enough or didn’t protest enough.
Fuck the CCP
Even better, creating a record of who voted for who to be used against them later
True. I didn’t look at it that way. Couldn’t they have wrote in who they want?
I don’t know the details of how their voting system works but I’d be surprised if there was such a loophole given how locked down the process for becoming a candidate is.
It’s a really messed up situation unfortunately.
True. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a dude with a rifle peering over their shoulder as they vote.
Not voting mainland sanctioned leaders is a protest. But china doesn’t recognise it anyway.
They can only vote on CCP approved candidates. Also, 50% of the votes are allocated to big corps like banks.
Their election system is a joke.
