Hong Kong Residents Back Democracy Slate

Barred from legislative chambers by Communist fiat 11 months ago, democracy advocates swept back into office in Hong Kong's first election under Chinese rule, according to results announced today.

More than 60 percent of the 1.49 million people who voted in direct elections Sunday chose democracy candidates who vowed to stand up to Beijing and protect Hong Kong's unique, free-wheeling way of life -- although electoral rules kept them from winning more than 20 of the Legislative Council's 60 seats.

Martin Lee, the lawyer who has spearheaded Hong Kong's fight for democracy for nine years, called the results a repudiation of "Asian values" -- respect for authority, stability and Confucian philosophy -- as interpreted by Hong Kong's pro-Beijing chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa.

"Asian values have been twisted by Asian leaders interested in power," Lee, 58, said in an interview. "Unfortunately, our chief executive is in this camp. But I say, if you give me an American, a European or an Asian, they all want to be free. That's what we showed on Sunday."

The comeback by Lee and his 19 colleagues, along with the record-setting turnout of 53 percent of Hong Kong's registered voters, marks an important moment in the history of this former British colony of 6.6 million highly educated and skilled people on the underbelly of China. In effect, Hong Kong's voters created the first opposition bloc in the history of Communist-ruled China.

"I think the people have spoken very loudly and clearly," said Emily Lau, a former journalist whose populist Frontier movement won three seats. "They support democracy. . . . I certainly hope the people in Beijing would be watching closely."

Practically speaking, however, the democrats' victory is a hollow one. Electoral rules written by Hong Kong's Chinese-installed government ensured that Lee's Democratic Party would win only a minority of the 60 seats up for grabs in the Legislative Council. Final results gave the Democrats and their allies 20 seats, although they garnered the most votes by far.

Fifteen of their seats were won through direct election, while five came from so-called functional constituencies -- professional groups such as doctors, lawyers and information technology workers whose members voted separately. Hong Kong's democrats will be blocked from proposing legislation and denied any check on government plans. Pro-China legislators will dominate the body.

Flocking to the polls through driving rain that flooded villages in Hong Kong's New Territories and sent waterfalls cascading from the mottled tenements of Mong Kok and Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong's people also buried the misconception that they are an apathetic, money-obsessed lot -- although one clothing store did do a brisk business offering T-shirts at 40 percent off to customers who could prove they had voted.

"We have to participate to show that we care and we want further steps toward democracy," said Samuel Kui, 33, an insurance agent who voted Sunday. "The high turnout yesterday is really good news. It might even push the Chinese government to give us more seats and a fairer voting system."

Indeed, Lee vowed that his first move in the legislature will be to call for a debate on the pace of democratization in Hong Kong. Under the Basic Law -- Hong Kong's constitution that forms part of an agreement between China and Britain to maintain Hong Kong's capitalist and pluralist system for 50 years after the handover -- 20 of the council's 60 seats were directly elected in this vote. That number is to rise to 24 in 1999, and to 30 by 2003 or 2004.

By 2007, the entire council could be directly elected. But Tung, the Beijing-appointed chief executive, recently told U.S. diplomats he was thinking of delaying that commitment for as long as 15 years, sources said.

"We have put democracy at the forefront of our campaign platform," Lee said, pledging to battle Tung on the issue. "We believe this tremendous increase in voter turnout means that people want democracy. We owe it to our people to fight for it."

Lee and the rest of his democracy allies were tossed out of the legislature by Beijing shortly after midnight last June 30, when Hong Kong was handed over to China after 156 years of British colonial rule. From the crenelated balcony of the 19th-century Legislative Council, Lee and his followers held a candlelight vigil, shouting, "We will return."

His subsequent campaign was modeled, Lee said, after the famous words uttered by Gen. Douglas MacArthur when he retreated from the Philippines in 1942.

China replaced Lee and his followers with a pliant group of pro-Beijing businessmen because Beijing opposed a rapid program of democratization undertaken by Chris Patten, Britain's last governor. For elections held in 1995, Patten moved to increase democratic participation in Hong Kong by increasing the number of professionals eligible to vote in the functional constituencies races to 1.15 million. This year, new rules, written under China's guidance, cut that number to 139,000.

The new rules generated some bizarre statistics. While democracy groups garnered 68 percent of the approximately 80,000 ballots cast for the 30 functional constituency seats, they won only five of them. Some pro-Beijing candidates won in functional constituency races by garnering as few as 26 votes, because the numbers of eligible voters in some constituencies was so small.

Democracy candidates did not compete at all in one portion of the election, in which 10 seats were chosen by an Election Committee of 800 members, who were generally pro-Beijing.

Michael DeGolyer, an American political scientist who has been studying Hong Kong's transition to Chinese rule, said the high turnout was the most significant development.

In 1991, the first time Hong Kong directly elected some legislators, 39 percent of registered voters cast ballots. In 1995, 35 percent participated. DeGolyer said "revenge voting" and anger at Tung produced the increase this time.

People were voting against Tung's moves to diminish the use of English in schools and to "Sinicize" everyday life in Hong Kong, he said.

DeGolyer also argued that the vote showed that scholars in the West who had scoffed at the generally powerless Legislative Council might have been wrong.

"Once the democrats were kicked out of the legislature, Hong Kong people turned around and said, `It does make a difference. No one is standing up for us,' " DeGolyer said.

Research assistant Alice Fung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.