Hong Kong district council election: city leader John Lee casts ballot in ‘patriots-only’ poll, urges public to vote with turnout at 3% in first hour

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Hongkongers trickled into polling stations as the city’s first “patriots-only” district council election began on Sunday morning.

The city’s 4.33 million registered voters can head to any of the more than 600 polling stations open from 8.30am to 10.30pm to decide 88 of 470 seats in the new councils. The geographical seats are being contested by 171 candidates.

The election is the first since the municipal-level bodies were overhauled to align them with Beijing’s principle that only “patriots” should be in charge. The city’s leader will appoint 179 councillors, and 2,532 members of district committees will decide another 176. Rural committee chairs will hold 27 ex officio seats.

Authorities have embarked on an unprecedented campaign to encourage voting, launching an intensive advertising campaign, organising a weekend outdoor concert and providing HK$20,000 (US$2,560) in subsidies to individual centres for the elderly to help cover the cost of transporting residents to polling stations.

But observers have suggested the absence of opposition candidates and many residents’ difficulty in understanding the changes to the election process could lower the turnout rate.

Reporting by Jeffie Lam, Natalie Wong, Lilian Cheng, Willa Wu, Kahon Chan, Harvey Kong, Jack Deng and Sophie Chew.