Hong Kong’s Election Committee finalised after marathon vote-counting process, with outlier candidates left in the cold

Analysis indicates only those who ran together on so-called coordinated lists achieved success, with those running alone often losing by wide margins

Officials, meanwhile, apologise for ‘unreasonable’ time spent tallying 4,380 ballots, which left candidates asking why they had to wait overnight for results

Reading Time:4 minutes

The official results of the Election Committee race were finally released at 7.35am on Monday morning. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 11:54am, 20 Sep 2021Updated: 8:02am, 21 Sep 2021

A powerful new Election Committee dominated by Beijing loyalists and pro-establishment figures is set to play a deciding role in Hong Kong’s coming legislative and leadership polls after its membership was established on Monday morning.

The full results were declared following a delayed vote count that took nearly 14 hours, after the first poll since Beijing’s drastic overhaul of the city’s political system to ensure only those deemed “patriots” would hold public office.

The announcement of the winners came with a public apology from electoral officials for the “unreasonable” time it had taken to tally only 4,380 ballot papers to decide the composition of the committee that will not only choose the city’s next leader but also nominate lawmakers and field candidates for the legislature.

A vote-counting process that took nearly 14 hours resulted in an apology by officials. Photo: Sam Tsang

Only those who pooled their candidacies together in “coordinated lists” won seats in the 1,500-strong Election Committee, while outliers who ran independently – despite being part of the Beijing-friendly bloc – were unsuccessful.

Electoral officers finally announced the last batch of results from the labour subsector at 7.35am, 13½ hours after polling stations closed.

While the delay drew the ire of candidates and embarrassed the government, and critics questioned the representativeness of the entire exercise, Beijing’s liaison office in the city hailed it as marking a “major step in Hong Kong’s democratic development with its own characteristics”.