2008 Hong Kong legislative election

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress vote in December 2007 to allow universal suffrage by 2017, and full Legislative Council elections by 2020, tempered the debate on universal suffrage. Wary of political parties, the government sought to defer discussion on other highly sensitive issues until October 2008, in the hopes that the election will be void of focus. The election was therefore fought over issues regarding the minimum wage, health care reform, Old Age Allowance, and the future of RTHK. Also, the case surrounding former Housing Director Leung Chin-man served to highlight the issue of systematic checks and balances, and the lack of political scrutiny of government actions.[5]

Commentators, such as Albert Cheng, noted that the fighting between pro-democracy parties was heating up, but forecast few changes in the overall party standings of the new Council. He cited proportional representation as a mechanism, which built in protection for a multi-party system.[6]

There were some concerns that those seeking the right of abode in Hong Kong felt pressured by lobbyists supporting the DAB. Two advocacy groups echoed abode-seekers' in being bombarded with telephone calls and other pressures to vote for the DAB, or for Regina Ip.[7]

A total of 142 candidates on 53 lists entered the election via the geographical constituencies,[8] making it the most contested election since the handover of Hong Kong.[9] The candidates of both the pan-democracy and pro-Beijing coalitions stated that they would not allocate the votes within each camp, leading to infighting inside the caucuses.[10] Martin Lee and Anson Chan announced that they would not stand, and would endorse other candidates. In addition, some incumbent legislators such as Audrey Eu of the Civic Party and Yeung Sum of the Democratic Party were placed second on their lists in an attempt to get less experienced members of their parties elected.[11]

Beijing's involvement in the elections was an open secret: its strategy was to elect a new batch of "independent" aspirants with profession backgrounds and without a strong pro-Beijing image, such as Scarlet Pong, and eventual winners Regina Ip and Priscilla Leung. It had hoped they would appeal to the middle class voters and steal votes from the pan-democratic parties.[4]

The functional constituencies were less competitive: 14 out of the 30 seats were uncontested. The Accounting and Architectural, Surveying and Planning functional constituencies were the most contested, with 5 candidates competing in each constituency.[12][13] 45 candidates in total ran for the 16 contested seats.[14]

Ten incumbents chose not to run for re-election.

Results of the election: the party with the plurality of votes by each polling station.

A record number of 3.37 million people registered to vote in the election. The turnout rate was low, at 45% with 1.51 million voters casting ballots.[15]

Commentator Chris Yeung believed that the Liaison Office operated behind the scenes to co-ordinate votes for the pro-Beijing camp. These independents managed to secure seats, but apparently not at the expense of support for the pan-democrats.[4]

The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong remained the largest single party in Council, with 13 seats.[16] The share of the pan-democratic parties' vote among voters dropped from 60% in 2004 to 57%, which translated into a net loss of 2 seats. The pan-democrats were elected to a total of 23 seats, 19 seats in the directly elected geographical constituencies, and four seats from the functional constituencies. By virtue of having in excess of 1⁄3 of the seats in LegCo, their ability to veto constitutional changes remained intact. The pan-democrats' veto power were crucial for the electoral arrangements for the 2012 elections, which will take place during this Council.[4]

In the backdrop of a deteriorating economy and rising inflation, voters shifted their preferences towards more radical and grass-roots politicians; the electorate's suspicions of collusion between government and big business dealt a blow to the Liberal Party.[17] The Liberal Party suffered double defeat when Selina Chow and chairman James Tien lost their seats in the New Territories West and New Territories East geographical constituencies respectively. Their bid to secure seats in other constituencies also failed. Tien resigned as the Liberal Party's chairman after his defeat, and Chow resigned both her vice-chairmanship and her seat on the Executive Council of Hong Kong.[3] The election of three members of the League of Social Democrats and four trade-unionists to Legco is set to pose a challenge to the government on welfare and livelihood issues.[18]

Share of votes of the parties by polling stations:

Democratic Party	Civic Party	League of Social Democrats
DAB	FTU

Before election:

Change in composition:

Summary of the 7 September 2008 Legislative Council of Hong Kong election results

Parties and allegiances			Geographical constituencies				Functional constituencies				Total seats	±
			Votes	%	±pp	Seats	Votes	%	±pp	Seats
		Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong	347,373	22.92	0.19	7	259	0.21	N/A	3	10	1
		Liberal Party	65,622	4.33	2.39	0	4,089	3.34	1.37	7	7	3
		Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions	86,311	5.70	2.73	2	–	–	–	2	4	1
		Pro-Beijing individuals and others	103,162	6.81	−	2	33,633	27.50	–	14	16	−
Total for pro-Beijing camp			602,468	39.75	2.35	11	37,981	31.06	1.47	26	37	3
		Democratic Party	312,692	20.63	4.56	7	41,331	33.80	3.15	1	8	1
		Civic Party	207,000	13.66	7.04	4	9,187	7.51		1	5	1
		League of Social Democrats	153,390	10.12	N/A	3	–	–	–	–	3	1
		Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre	42,441	2.80	0.53	1	–	–	–	–	1	0
		Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions	42,366	2.80	1.15	1	–	–	–	–	1	0
		Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood	42,211	2.79	1.43	1	–	–	–	–	1	0
		The Frontier	33,205	2.19	4.70	1	–	–	–	–	1	0
		Civic Act-up	30,887	2.04	0.05	1	–	–	–	–	1	1
		Hong Kong Social Workers' General Union	–	–	–	–	5,334	4.36	1.90	1	1	1
		Pro-democracy individuals and others	37,515	2.48	−	0	18,276	14.95	–	1	1	−
Total for pan-democracy camp			901,707	59.50	2.94	19	74,128	60.62	2.19	4	23	3
	Councillors without formal affiliation with any political party		11,304	0.75	−	0	10,173	8.32	–	0	0	0
Total			1,515,479	100.00		30	122,282	100.00		30	60	0
Valid votes			1,515,479	99.42	0.20		122,282	95.56	0.85
Invalid votes			8,770	0.58	0.20		5,691	4.44	0.85
Votes cast / turnout			1,524,249	45.20	10.43		127,973	60.30	9.84
Registered voters			3,372,007	100.00	5.14		212,227	100.00	10.32
Source: Hong Kong government Archived 7 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine

Note: Candidates in 14 functional constituencies were elected uncontested to the Legislative Council. The number of seats for the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions in the geographical constituencies exclude Wong Kwok-hing, Wong Kwok-kin and Pan Pey Chyou, who are also DAB members; figures in parentheses in the pan-democracy and pro-Beijing total percentage exclude all votes of other individuals.

Votes summary

Ring charts of the election results showing popular vote against seats won, coloured in green (Pro-democracy camp) and red (Pro-Beijing camp) on the left and the party colours on the right. Seats won in the election (outer ring) against number of votes (inner ring).

Popular vote DAB   22.92% Democratic   20.63% Civic   13.66% LSD   10.10% FTU   5.70% Liberal   4.33% NWSC   2.80% CTU   2.80% ADPL   2.79% Frontier   2.19% Civic Act-up   2.04% Others   10.03%

• Legislative Council of Hong Kong
• 2010 Hong Kong by-election

• Legislative Council of Hong Kong
• Electoral Affairs Commission