35% turnout rate for nominators
A feeble turnout from the "Three Committees" puts the writing on the wall for the upcoming District Council election turnout
You might think those tasked with vetting candidates for the first District Council election under "patriots ruling Hong Kong" would be taking their role seriously.
But in fact, the turnout rate for nominators is barely a third.
With nominations now drying up, I spent the morning poring over nomination forms of those Kowloon City candidates lucky enough to be nominated by the elusive Three Committees. Never mind for a moment that the majority of them are actually on the committees themselves – I was more interested in who was nominating them and, more importantly, how many nominators have stepped up to the task.
Of 178 “Three Committee” members in Kowloon City, only 63 of them (35%) have made any nomination in the geographical constituencies to date.
Between those active nominators, they’ve made 92 nominations for the eight geographical constituency candidates1.
The poorest turnout is in the Kai Tak Area Committee which has, thus far, given just one nomination from its 23 members, a 4% turnout.
John Lee yesterday said those who weren’t nominated should “reflect on their own performance”.
Sorry Mr Lee, that doesn’t wash. Given such an apathetic showing from the government’s own nomination committees, aren’t we justified in pointing the finger straight back?
Frankly we shouldn't be happy with anything less than a 100% turnout from the government’s nomination committees, although I’d accept something like the general public’s turnout from the last District Council election (71%) as a floor for improvement. But 35% (and 4% in Kai Tak Area Committee!)? Nope. Instead of blaming candidates, Lee should be sacking the 65% of Three Committee members who have utterly failed their duties.
Should we translate this disinterest from the political elite into general voter turnout? Is the torpor of the Three Committees a proxy for a collective “meh” ahead?
It’s certainly fair to say that if those granted the privilege of choosing candidates can’t even be bothered to vote then it’s hard to see the general public getting excited.
“Hello Regina, it's Michael” *line disconnects*
Some rare levity in the nomination battle from Michael Tien’s attempts to get nominations for his Roundtable candidates.
Tien has also raised the issue of slacking nominators, to which former party colleague and ExCo convenor Regina Ip said (paraphrasing) “well, we are former colleagues, he just has to give me a call to ask for help”.
So Tien called her up to ask for help.
“Hello Regina, it’s Michael,” he said.
She hung up 😂
Ip later claimed she had been in a meeting, to which Tien replied, then why did she answer the phone?
Tien, a long-standing politician with excellent credentials, has only found nominations for one of his five candidates so far, and his efforts are an excellent spotlight on the nomination issue from someone “upstanding”.
Could someone please explain to John Lee how it actually works?
Chief Exec John Lee’s comments on the nomination challenges have now passed from irksome to infuriating.
He suggests the main reason nominators are rejecting candidates is their lack of experience or patriotic credentials.
This could be a credible explanation IF THE NOMINATORS ACTUALLY MET/SPOKE TO THE CANDIDATES OR KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT THEM.
In fact, Lee is either clueless or grossly dishonest here.
He gives the impression that the District Offices have helped 300 people to get in contact with the nomination committees and, after that, the candidates need to do the hard work of convincing the nominators of their worth.
But that’s not the system. As I’ve said ad nauseum here [skip this paragraph if you're a regular reader], the District Office refused to do anything but send a basic “request for contact” to the committee members (the bulk of whom were hidden from public view). That “request for contact” didn't even mention the nomination request and we were not allowed to add any information or attachments. The requests the committee received would be indistinguishable from the many other requests committee members get from salespeople and scam artists seeking their attention and district budgets every day.
The response rate, in my case, has been just two responses, around 1% of the total committee, and that’s now a couple of weeks after they sent the email. In response, Home Affairs Bureau said the response “shows the system is working”, which perhaps reveals more than they meant to.
I did appreciate those two getting in touch and I made my case to them in the way Lee envisions. And in those two cases, indeed, I should reflect on my own performance: one chose someone else, the other is not in Hong Kong and remains undecided.
Nominations close next Monday, when I'll update the nomination turnout – we shouldn’t expect it to climb much in the next few days and it’s hard to see them reaching much above 50%. An absolute disgrace from our most politically-privileged citizens.
Although I believe I spotted three nominators (Diana Leung, Wong Kai-yueng and Bally Lam) each nominating two candidates in Kowloon City South – naughty, you're only allowed to nominate one! I trust the careful eyes of the Returning Officers will catch this breach of the rules. This does explain why candidates are going beyond the minimum requirement of nine nominators: backups are important in case of such snafus.
Send this to John Lee's office so he can get a full grasp of the situation.
I am now convinced that Iran has a more flexible and open minded unelected body for nominating candidates for its window dressing pseudo universal suffrage elections than Hong Kong does.