Hong Kong (AsiaNews) – Anson Chan Fang On-sang, former Hong Kong general secretary and democratic movement candidate has claimed victory in the islands parliamentary elections with over 54.8% votes over rival Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, supported by Beijing and pro-Beijing parties. Ip took only 42.9%. The vote served to fill a seat in the Legco (Legislative council) – left vacant after the death of a parliamentarian – but it was also seen as a test for or against democracy in the territory.
This morning Chan said that her victory showed the demand for greater political freedom in Hong Kong ".The results of these elections – she said – indicate that the people of Hong Kong want democracy to advance. We believe we will be ready to activate universal suffrage by 2012”.
Both candidates supported universal suffrage for 2012, but Ip put conditions on candidacy which would have been to the exclusive advantage of pro-Beijing parties.
The Hong Kong constitution (Basic Law), signed by London and Beijing, provides for the possibility of universal suffrage after 2008. But China has since intervened taking full control of politics in the territory in fear that democracy in Hong Kong would spread to the Motherland.
In an interview with Afp, Ma Ngok, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the result would re-energise the pro-democracy movement, which suffered a humiliating string of results in recent local elections (district councils). “It sends a message [to Beijing]: The middle classes in Hong Kong still care a lot about democracy even with the economic rebound here. It gives them [Beijing politicians] something to think about”.
67 year old Anson Chan, who is catholic, is known as "Hong Kong's conscience”. She was the territory's top civil servant in the last years of Britain's colonial rule, and has long supported autonomy for the territory as guaranteed by Basic Law, an autonomy which China has consistently denied. Regina Ip 57, often dubbed the "Dragon Lady” for her acquiescence to Chinese politics. Ip earned that nickname as security secretary over hugely unpopular proposed national security law (Art. 23), which infringed on human rights, provoking widespread demonstrations and criticism across the territory and eventually led to her resignation and a withdrawal of the draft in 2003.