'The silent majority is with us,' says Hong Kong councillor after landslide win for pro-democracy candidates

Transcript

Newly elected pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong are celebrating the same way they campaigned — on the street.

After nearly six months of unrest and protests, Hong Kongers turned out in record numbers on Sunday to vote in the semi-autonomous region's district council elections.

Pro-democracy candidates won an overwhelming majority in Hong Kong's district council election, winning 90 per cent of the 452 elected seats.

Meanwhile, pro-Beijing politicians suffered a massive blow, with many heavyweight pro-Beijing opponents losing their seats.

Lo Kin-hei was re-elected in Hong Kong's southern district. The district councillor is also vice-chairperson of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong.

As It Happens host Carol Off spoke to Lo about the landslide victory and why he thinks it sends a message to pro-Beijing politicians that the "silent majority" in Hong Kong support the pro-democracy movement.

Here is part of their conversation.

How would you describe yesterday's victory for the pro-democracy candidates like yourself?

Well, I think it's extraordinary. It's a landslide victory. But I would not be too happy about that because we see a lot of bloodshed in the past few months and I think it all builds up to this poll.

And so, this result is built by a lot of beating, protesting, and bloodshed, and tears, as well.

How unusual was it to see the numbers of people who turned out? And overwhelmingly young people came out to vote. Have you seen a percentage like this? Seventy-one per cent of eligible voters were at the polls.

Yeah. That is never seen before. I have never seen so many young people queuing up outside the polling station, early in the morning. I think it is some extraordinary scene that we have ever seen in Hong Kong.

I do believe that young people are very keen to voice their message, to voice their views, to the government and to all the people in the world that we are not satisfied with the government and how they deal with the protests for the past five months.

It's interesting because we were hearing in recent weeks pro-Beijing leaders who were saying that people in Hong Kong were fed up with these protests, with the violence, that the tide was turning, that the people turning out didn't have support from the general population. What message does this now send to those big pro-Beijing leaders?

Well, of course, the result tells them the silent majority is not with them. The silent majority is with us. The people are with us. The people are with the protesters.

And, I think, of course, there is a lot of violence in the past few weeks. But I think people still believe that and they still think that the origin of the problem, the cause of that problem, is from the government and from the pro-establishment side, and from Beijing.

At the same time though, these were elections for district councils and that's a very low level of Hong Kong government. So, really what can they actually accomplish? And it's only for a small percentage of those seats, right?

The district council itself is not very politically sensitive in its function because we deal with livelihood issues, mostly, in district councils. 

But I think Hong Kong people treat this election as a referendum to the recent disputes in the society. So I think it's a political message that sent to the Beijing government and the Hong Kong government, as well.

We know though that the district councils, of which you have been elected to, it's probably the most democratic body of Hong Kong's politics. But your legislature ... about half of the seats are actually elected, and, of course, the person in charge, the chief executive is not chosen by the voters. Carrie Lam and whoever has that office is chosen by a committee that's stacked in favour of Beijing. So ... do you think they have any obligation to listen to these elections?

Of course, I think they should listen because this kind of landslide result, I think if that happens in anywhere in the world, the administration have to admit that there must be a very big problem within them.

So although this district council election is not causing much political influence in our daily works, I think the government should still listen.

I do believe that it creates some problems for Beijing government to consider who will be the next chief executive and they have to take our views into account as well.

Do you really think so? Do you think that Beijing will say, "Whoops, we better start listening to these pro-democracy activists. Maybe we'll change our mind about who should be leading Hong Kong."

I think there is a chance. Of course, I am not too optimistic about that.

But we're closer to the 600 threshold that [we] need to elect a chief executive. So the room for manoeuvre for Beijing government is less. So I think they may not be listening to us, but with the pro-democracy side and with the Hong Kong local business sectors, the bargaining power is big enough for Beijing government to actually respond to either side.

It must seem to Beijing though that they have lost control of what's going on in Hong Kong, or it appears to us that that's the case. At what point do you think that Beijing will do something dramatic in order to regain control?

We are not quite sure because in the past few months Hong Kong people have spoken or act in a lot of ways and to express our views. But the Beijing government seems that they didn't see us.

So at this point of time, when this kind of landslide election result came out, I think the Beijing government has to reconsider whether they have to stick with their original [hardline] approach in Hong Kong, because it seems to us that the Beijing government has chosen a very [hardline] approach to Hong Kong.

You mentioned there are a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and a lot of people have been hurt. There are still a number of students at the Polytechnic University. There was talk that you and others might go try and get those last demonstrators out because they're surrounded by police. Are you doing that?

I was there this afternoon and I think a lot of us will keep on doing that — trying to make the Hong Kong police stand down from the [Polytechnic University] campuses so that the people can go free and the people inside there can actually find their lives again and not to be trapped there.

We don't know how it will unfold. But we will try our best.

Written by Morgan Passi and John McGill. Interview produced by Morgan Passi. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.