The 2012 Legislative Council Election was held smoothly on Sept 9 with the final results announced the following day. This author has reached some initial conclusions on what has changed and what has not in Hong Kong's political eco-system after the LegCo election.

1. Hong Kong residents' enthusiasm for political participation continues to rise, but higher voter turnout does not necessarily mean less support for pro-establishment parties.

As the chief executive and LegCo elections by popular vote draw closer, and various political forces are going all out to win elections, the interest in how the SAR is governed among the people is growing. The latest LegCo election saw voter turnout in direct geographical constituency elections reach 53 percent, compared with 45 percent four years ago, with about 1.83 million ballots cast; while voter turnout in the so-called super district councilor election stood at about 51.9 percent with some 1.67 million votes, indicating voting was not significantly affected by the League of Social Democrats' call for voters to return blank ballots.

There is a popular view among political pundits that higher voter turnout in elections tends to favor the opposition parties, but the results of last year's District Council elections and this year's LegCo election seem to have challenged the conventional wisdom. Out of the 35 directly contested geographical constituency seats in the 2012 LegCo election, pro-establishment candidates won 17, six more than they did in the previous election. Pro-establishment candidates took 43 of the 70 LegCo seats for a 60 percent majority. The fact that pro-establishment parties achieved such impressive results this time around indicates the "curse of high voter turnout" for leading parties has been broken.

2. Various political forces have become used to Hong Kong's electoral system and vote distribution is no longer an exclusive practice among pro-establishment parties.

Because geographical constituencies (GC) are represented proportionally in LegCo, it helps to use vote distribution in GC direct elections. For example, a party arranges its candidates to compete on different tickets so that they can win with balanced votes across the geographical constituencies.

The opposition camp used to criticize pro-establishment parties for neglecting political ideals and using vote distribution to win more LegCo seats. This time the Democratic Party, Civic Party and People Power also used vote distribution among their own candidates to send as many into LegCo as possible. They all paired up their candidates in various geographical constituency races but did not fare very well due to poor skills. For instance, the Civic Party screwed up its vote distribution so badly that its former chairwoman Audrey Eu and hot-pick Tanya Chan both lost in GC elections. As a result, CP elitists won just three GC races this time. The Democratic Party fared even worse, suffering wipeouts in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon East and Western New Territories.

Opposition parties also paid the price for their intrigue and vicious competition within their own camp. Their vote distribution did not work so well but the fact is they used the method in a bid to improve results. This shows various political forces in Hong Kong have grown used to the city's electoral system and the pro-establishment parties will face tougher challenges in the future, now that opposition parties also use vote distribution in elections.

3. The radical opposition forces' influence is growing noticeably. The direction and political consequences of this trend are worthy of serious examination.

In this year's LegCo election, People Power won three seats and the League of Social Democrats grabbed one in GC direct elections. Both are leading radical opposition groups and together they netted 260,000 votes, accounting for 14.2 percent of the total, compared with about 10 percent in previous LegCo elections. Meanwhile, the Civic Party, which is increasingly leaning toward radicalism, also won three seats in GC races with some 150,000 votes (13.66 percent of the total). The three radical opposition parties together garnered 27.86 percent of all votes in GC elections this time.

Hong Kong has always been considered a city favoring moderation, rationality and the rule of law. Radical forces had to be content with their fringe status for many years, because they were only good at much-loathed street politics and never taken seriously. In recent years, however, these radical parties have not only found their way into the LegCo but also been expanding their political base. If these forces continue to grow, who knows what impact they will have on Hong Kong's long-term prosperity and stability? This is an issue everyone who cares about Hong Kong's future well-being should treat very seriously.

The author is a veteran current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 09/13/2012 page3)