{"id":18578,"date":"2019-11-28T22:33:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T14:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/?p=18578"},"modified":"2019-11-28T22:33:14","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T14:33:14","slug":"hong-kongers-show-not-only-the-depths-of-their-discontent-but-also-their-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/?p=18578","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kongers show not only the depths of their discontent, but also their power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday’s vote was framed as a\u00a0de facto referendum<\/a>\u00a0on the protests by all sides. With turnout high from the moment polls opened — and overtaking the 2015 total by midday — many were predicting a win for pro-democracy candidates, but few expected the utter drubbing they delivered.<\/p>\n

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  1. The landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates in Sunday’s district council elections is a stinging rebuke to the city’s\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 government — and an example of what protesters can achieve given the opportunity.<\/li>\n
  2. By avoiding unrest and trusting voters to support them, protesters scored a bigger victory than if they had disrupted the polls.<\/li>\n
  3. They also demonstrated that far from devolving into anarchy, as some on the government side have claimed, the protest movement can — unlike the police, Beijing or the city’s leaders — control when and where the unrest takes place.<\/li>\n
  4. Sunday saw beautiful blue skies, long queues and one of the calmest days in Hong Kong since the protests began in June.<\/li>\n
  5. \u00a0Far from the visions of destruction and anger that have dominated coverage recently, this was a city that worked. And judging by the results, it worked in spite of, not because of, its government.<\/li>\n
  6. According to public broadcaster RTHK<\/a>, opposition candidates took nearly 90% of the seats up for grabs. Going into Sunday’s elections, all 18 district councils were controlled by pro-Beijing parties.<\/li>\n
  7. As counting wrapped up Monday, all but one had flipped to overall pro-democratic control. The only outlier, the Islands council, includes a number of appointed members — even then, pro-democracy candidates took a majority of the elected seats.<\/li>\n
  8. In this, the elections were a demonstration of people power in more ways than one. Protesters showed they had the discipline to let people speak, and they were rewarded with a resounding vote of confidence<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Sunday’s vote was framed as a\u00a0de facto referendum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[52],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18578"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18579,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18578\/revisions\/18579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hkgovjob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}