Why altercation over casting blank vote?|Leung Kai-chi
After Beijing forced through a substantial amendment to Hong Kong’s electoral arrangement, the Hong Kong government suggested modifications to the Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance as well to ban people from inciting another person not to cast a vote, or to cast a blank or invalid vote during election. Actually, since Beijing weighed in, any election in Hong Kong has become meaningless already, and it has also been expected that the public are unwilling to take part. Now that it has gone so far as to suggest a ban on boycott, how unconfident is the government in the election to come?
Despite being fond of research into election, I am not keen on the various overwhelming and sweeping revisions this time. Usually, the reason why an event is worth delving into is that there is some content involved which is of critical importance, has profound effect, yet is hardly detectable. As the saying goes, “the devil is in details”. The amendment to the electoral system this time is far from being worth any analysis, for the outcome is plain as a pikestaff: election result is not important anymore.
First of all, there are a great number checkpoints in the novel electoral arrangement so that the pro-democracy aspirants will be beset by difficulties when running for office. Worse still, with directly elected seats amounting only to 2/9 of the total number of seats, even if the pro-democracy camp gets them all, it is guaranteed that they cannot grab even the critical few - 1/3, not to mention more than half of all the seats. What’s more, after the mechanism of voting in groups modified, lawmakers from functional constituencies and geographical constituencies are put in one group, so that the pro-democracy camp is even deprived of their veto in voting in groups. To this end, there is essentially no difference for the democracy camp between scoring one and ten seats. So, what’s the point making a study of it?
Furthermore, legal principles and reasoning gave way to the revision this time. As regards the political reform in 2010, it was approved by the National People’s Congress pursuant to Annex 1 of the Basic Law that stipulates that the bill has to be supported by 2/3 of LegCo councilors before approval. As for the one in 2015, since less than 2/3 of LegCo members voted for it, it was defeated. In 2021, however, the National People’s Congress told you all of a sudden that making amendments to Annex 1 is none of the business of the LegCo. Then why did the authorities involve the LegCo in the previous two modifications? Were they just for fun? So, now that the amendment this time has just told us the LegCo is irrelevant, why is it still worth discussing the electoral arrangement for the LegCo?
Originally, there was not a consensus among the populace how to response to the revised electoral system. The various solutions I have heard about so far include enduring all the disgrace and insults just in order to run for office, and putting election under a boycott as proposed by a lot of people. The difference between the two is whether you cast a blank or invalid vote, or abstain from voting. Some advocate running in election in a jeering manner by making “the Coriander Party” and ‘the Siu Mai(Cantonese steamed dumping with shrimp) Concern Group” bricks-and-mortar political groups that send candidates to stand in election to see what reasons the vetting committee will be able to come up with to disqualify them from taking part. However, it was not anticipated that the government adopted a high profile to dress down anyone who calls on others to cast a blank vote, which, to everyone’s surprise, unified what the populace thought in a short while. Everyone is now convinced that casting a blank vote is a solution worth considering. As far as incitement to casting blank vote made a criminal offence is concerned, I am afraid that the government is the first one culpable for it.
From the perspective of a resistance movement, there are pros and cons of both casting blank vote and a plain boycott. Millions of electors lining up for casting a blank vote surely provides a sense of participation and even of comedy. Nevertheless, since every vote is confidential, no one knows if there are really blank votes cast. So, in terms of strategy, abstaining from voting is a better way to get things done neatly.
From the government’s perspective, the way to dodge the awkwardness brought about by either a blank-vote movement or boycott against election is unmanageable. In the past, the authorities would make public once every hour the number of people who had voted, so that a high or low turnout for an election was clear as day; subtracting the number of votes gained by all candidates from the total number of votes cast amounted to the number of blank votes. Though surely the government will be able to refrain from making public the number of people who have voted, any citizen can take the initiative to stand by a polling place to count how many people have actually voted, so the truth will inevitably be found out.
At the end of its tether, the government came up with this move to impose a “ban on appealing”. It seems that the government is still living in prehistoric times, thinking that it is impossible for citizens to reach a consensus in favor of a single notion, so they must have been instigated. Notwithstanding the protest in 2019 known for “having no organizer” the best example to prove the idea wrong, the government unswervingly sets on ascribing all protests to the people at the instigation of someone. Please don’t tell me that the citizens voluntarily lining up for shopping at shops of a yellow chain store recently was a conspiracy. With Hong Kong’s political leaders either living in exile or taken into custody, who is that “manipulator behind the scenes” the government refer to?
The government doesn’t care about response from the populace
With nothing to put a ban against anymore, the government still wanted to prohibit incitement. I have thought of three possible reasons why they did it. Firstly, the government is bound to deny its measures unpopular, so the public is certainly misled into being discontent with the government – an essential principle of an autocratic regime. Secondly, all government functionaries are bureaucrats whose way of living is to “feign working”, so the ban concerned is devised in response to the social situation. Thirdly, the government will not let go of any chance to legitimize suppression – since there is a voice from the populace to put election under a boycott, a corresponding ordinance is laid down now so that it will be more convenient to cope with dissidents in the days to come.
The three possibilities mentioned above are not mutually exclusive. Looking back on the coronavirus epidemic over the past year, one will find that the government employed the same tactic: it was not the government that was held responsible for any situation that was out of control, but the citizens who did not do well in the fight against the plague; to show its capability, the government invented a heap of preventive measures the effectiveness which was doubtful; despite the measures not efficacious in preventing infection of the disease, they became government’s novel tricks to curb the civil society. When it comes to the boycott against election, it is not different from the coronavirus pandemic in the sense that the public opinion is not subject to what the government wants to do. When the public are discontent with the fact that casting a vote has become senseless, it is hardly possible to prohibit them from expressing their mind - anyhow, they will find their own way to do so. One will only crush a balloon instead of making it smaller by squeezing it, which even primary school students understand. I believe the government knows it well too, but it is just that they do not care about the result anymore.
(Leung Kai-chi, current affairs commentator)
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