Record low turnout as pro-democracy candidates win in Hong Kong

May 17, 2010, 1:31 GMT

Hong Kong - Five Hong Kong pro-democracy candidates who stepped down to force by-elections that they wanted to be a de facto referendum on universal suffrage were declared winners Monday.

However, the turnout in Sunday's by-elections, boycotted by pro-China parties, was a record low with only 17.1 per cent, around 579,000, of the city's 3.37 million voters casting ballots.

Pro-democracy parties had hoped for more than 1 million voters after the legislators resigned in protest against proposed electoral reforms which they say do not go far enough towards full democracy.

But pro-China refused to field candidates and Hong Kong's chief executive Donald Tsang refused to vote, calling the elections a waste of taxpayers' money and an abuse of the electoral process.

All five pro-democracy legislators who stepped down in February were returned with strong majorities in the by-election results announced Monday morning.

Speaking after the results were announced, Hong Kong's secretary for constitutional affairs Stephen Lam said: 'The people of Hong Kong are very astute, very mature in assessing political issues.

'It is a fact that only 579,000 people have turned out to vote and that about 2.8 million of our registered voters have chosen not to take part in this by-election exercise.'

However, pro-democracy legislators said nearly all those who voted did so to express their desire for full democracy and their objections to the electoral reforms due to be voted on in June.

Hong Kong, a former British colony which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, has no popular vote for chief executive and only half its 60 legislators directly elected.

The city is technically entitled to full democracy under its post- handover mini-constitution, but Beijing has so far refused to set a timetable for universal suffrage.