{"id":8718,"date":"2016-02-25T18:29:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T10:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=8718"},"modified":"2016-02-25T19:43:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T11:43:29","slug":"new-territories-east-byelection-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2016\/02\/new-territories-east-byelection-ma\/","title":{"rendered":"Competition between pan-dems and localists gives DAB the edge in tight NT East race, says scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The war of words between supporters of Civic Party’s Alvin Yeung and Hong Kong Indigenous candidate Edward Leung may benefit DAB’s Holden Chow in by-election<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Megan Leung<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the New Territories East Legislative Council by-election approaches, Civic Party candidate Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu and Holden Chow Ho-ding, the candidate for the pro-establishment Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, are neck and neck in an opinion poll by the University of Hong Kong\u2019s Public Opinion Program for <\/span>WeMedia01<\/span><\/a> .<\/span><\/p>\n

The program surveyed 500 people, including 130 New Territories East voters, on February 17 and 18. It found that overall, Yeung and Chow both had 14 per cent of respondents backing them. Edward Leung Tin-kei, a candidate from the rising localist group Hong Kong Indigenous, had 8 per cent. \u00a0Among the New Territories East voters, Yeung had 15 per cent of respondents supporting him, Chow had 15 per cent and Leung had 9 per cent. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ma Ngok, Head of Department of Government and Public Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says Chow is more likely to do well in the election. He explains that unless the voter turnout rate was unusually high, just the votes from the pro-establishment camp alone would already be enough for Chow to win.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pro-democracy voters, on the other hand, have to choose between Yeung and Leung. Some of Yeung\u2019s supporters urge voters to forego Leung in order to send Yeung into Legco, saying that this is the only way to prevent Chow from winning. <\/span><\/p>\n

The debate became more heated after\u00a0the founder of the\u00a0influential satirical youth magazine and website 100Most,<\/em>\u00a0Lam Yat-hei urged voters to vote for whom they prefer instead of \u201cvoting with tears\u201d, which means voting strategically as suggested by the pan-democratic camp. \u00a0Strategic voting is one way to prevent splitting votes between candidates with a similar political stance, because split votes may end up with a strong rival winning. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever there are more than two candidates in the running, you have to consider whether you will choose a lesser evil, or cast your vote to prevent the candidate you least prefer to win the election,\u201d says Ma. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He says the concept of \u201cforegoing Yeung and keeping Leung\u201d does not make sense since it is unlikely that the localist group would have more votes than the pan-democrats. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no reason to give up a strong candidate in order to save the weak one,\u201d says Ma.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He adds that Leung is an \u201cunknown\u201d to many people, and that although Leung takes a more radical approach in dealing with the government than traditional pan-democrats, it does not mean this will work. \u00a0Many supporters of moderate pan-democrats may not buy this idea, Ma says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Organization and cohesion are essential for a campaign, but Ma says it has always been difficult for the pro-democracy camp to achieve this. Traditional pan-democrats and radical localists cannot reach a consensus despite having the same end goal of true democracy in Hong Kong. This makes it hard for either Yeung or Leung to win the election, Ma says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other candidates in the by-election are Lau Chi-shing, Wong Sing-chi, Albert Leung Sze-ho, Christine Fong Kwok-shan.<\/span><\/p>\n

The New Territories East Legislative Council by-election will be held on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Edited By Julian Ng<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The race to win the New Territories East Legislative Council seat vacated by Ronny Tong is looking to be tight. Latest polls show the Civic Party’s Alvin Yeung neck and neck with the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment (DAB) of Hong Kong’s Holden Chow. But political scientist Ma Ngok says the challenge from Edward Leung from Hong Kong Indigenous could give the pro-Beijing DAB the edge. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[421],"tags":[424,423,327,425,128],"class_list":["post-8718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-territories-east-by-election-2016","tag-election","tag-legco","tag-localism","tag-pan-dems","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8718"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8732,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718\/revisions\/8732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}