Advertisement
Advertisement
Legislative Council elections 2016
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Holden Chow Ho-ding on the campaign trail in Fanling in February. Photo: Bruce Yan

New faces, new hopes: the young Hong Kong contenders who will fight it out on September 4

Today we start a two-part series on the 10 new faces who will represent the pan-democratic, pro-establishment and localist groups in the Legislative Council elections on September 4.

2016 will be remembered for the emergence of politicians whose experience is remarkably different to that of the outgoing veteran lawmakers.

The average age of 28 candidates who for the first time head the slates contesting the geographical constituencies and five “super seats” – which will be elected by 3.47 million voters not eligible to vote in trade-based functional constituencies – is 38.5.

Contrast that with the average age of 62.6 for the 13 outgoing legislators.

Under the proportional representation system for geographical constituencies, parties or groups rank candidates on slates. A candidate’s chance of winning is based on a “quota” – obtained by dividing the number of valid votes cast for that constituency by the number of available seats. The top candidate on the list wins. Who gets the other seats is determined by ranking so-called remainder votes.

The retiring lawmakers can be described as the “handover generation” who witnessed the throes of that era. Their common memory spans the wrangling between Beijing and London over Hong Kong’s transition from a British colony to a special administrative region in China, as well as the ­impact of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

For most new faces, the saga of national security legislation in 2003 and the Occupy protests were the defining moments in their political awakening.

No matter how the 10 new faces fare on September 4, they are among the people who will shape the city’s political landscape in the years to come.

They are:

Visit scmp.tv for video reports on the new faces
Post