Beijing's only current - arms length - experiment with democratic practice is through Hong Kong's DAB party, which recently swept the board in the SAR district council elections. China Elections and Governance tells us how they did it, on a high poll and taking advantage of infighting and disarray among their pan-Democrat opponents:
Candidate coordination was based on community service work and familiarity with the constituencies contested. In one rare case, where DAB vice chairman Lau Kong-wah registered at the last minute in his old New Territories bailiwick, the pro-Beijing incumbent who had already registered to defend his seat promptly withdrew from the race. Any controversy was kept well hidden from public view and even the campaign teams were organized for photo calls. Thousands of DAB and FTU volunteers came out to support candidates as needed with banners, posters, street corner handouts, sound trucks, and minivan escort services for old folks on Election Day.
Nothing was left to chance. They even outpaced pan-democrats last summer during the voter registration period when pro-Beijing organizers coordinated with the government’s publicity drive and democrats were noticeable by their absence. Voter turnout was up slightly to 41.4 % from 38.8% in 2007, no doubt in response to all the controversies. But voting patterns reflected in the increased turnout seemed to reflect last summer’s registration drive. A net total 127,000 new voters were added to the rolls and the biggest increase was among seniors aged 61 to 65. Overall about one-quarter of Hong Kong’s 3.5 million registered voters are over 60, the age cohort least likely to be impressed by radical politicians and most in need of the DAB’s community services.
There's a lot of Putinism about this, but that aside the DAB people really seem to put in the work at local level. Your pan-democrat is the fellow with the big words about democracy; your DAB candidate is known in the neighbourhood for spending years ladling soup into grannies and talking 'common sense'. That's not how Nashi rolls. Here's the endgame:
The District Councils have become the building blocks of a mainland-style people’s congress system. This is based on direct elections at the local level but indirectly-elected communist party-controlled elections to fill congress seats at all levels above.
That's a travesty in terms of what Hong Kong was promised in 1997. On the other hand, it's just the kind of setup you could see happening in 'Happy Guangdong' sometime, especially if Wang Yang makes the Standing Committee next year.
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