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Opinion | New Legco street fighters will give the Hong Kong government a hard time

Get ready for more filibustering and the pan-democrats and localists using their veto power to sink major proposals

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Three of the six newly elected localists (front, from left) Lau Siu-lai, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick and Nathan Law Kwun-chung. Photo: Sam Tsang

The cardinal rule in politics is “never say never”. Anything can happen: even the most bizarre and the most unexpected.

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The best thing about this city’s politics is that it almost always makes us feel good about ourselves or bad about others. Last Sunday’s Legislative Council elections, the first major elections since the Occupy protests of two years ago, were no exception.

There was a record turnout of 2.2 million people, some 58 per cent of total registered voters. There was the rare phenomenon of long queues of people waiting patiently for their turn to vote. The queues stretched outside polling stations, round buildings, spilling over to sidewalks and over footbridges.

To allow all voters to cast their ballots, several polling stations were only able to close in the small hours next morning.

Make no mistake, many of these young people will still be around in 2047 when the rest of us are six feet under

Election results are now out. People have spoken.

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Results show that, out of the 70 seats in the legislature, 40 will be occupied by pro-establishment lawmakers and the rest by the pan-democratic opposition, including six radical “localists”, several of whom are street fighters of Occupy Central fame.

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