Hong Kong

If the district council election, normally a quiet affair, was a referendum on the protests, Beijing may find the result disquieting.

Voters waiting outside a polling station in the Ap Lei Chau neighborhood of Hong Kong on Sunday.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

By Austin Ramzy, Elaine Yu and Keith Bradsher

• Nov. 24, 2019, 1:14 p.m. ET
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HONG KONG — Pro-democracy campaigners took a strong lead in Hong Kong local elections on Sunday, according to early results, in a vote that turned a usually low-key affair into a referendum on the unrest that has created the city’s worst political crisis in decades.

The unusually high turnout was a signal that this was no ordinary election. Nearly three million people thronged Hong Kong’s polling places, and it appears they delivered a broad and unexpected victory the democracy movement.

It was a pointed rebuke for Beijing and its allies in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous part of China, and it suggested that the public continues to back the movement, even as the protests have grown increasingly violent. The surge was driven especially by young voters, a major force behind the demonstrations over the past six months.

The election was for district council members, one of the lowest rungs of Hong Kong’s elected offices. District councils mainly deal with noise complaints, bus stop locations and neighborhood beautification projects. Elections for them are usually quiet affairs focused on community issues.

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But in the midst of the increasingly violent protests that have divided the city, the race took on outsize significance. The vote was the first test of whether the protests could transform public anger that has led millions to take to the streets into actual votes, or whether the populace had grown weary of acts of civil disobedience that have snarled transportation and forced the closing of schools and businesses.

Through it all, the city was calm, as democracy advocates appeared to focus on participating in one of the few elections that Beijing allows in the territory under its sovereignty.

Hong Kong Protests

A guide to how the city got here.

“Politically speaking, the battle of the district councils as a whole is a crucial battle in taking control,” said Eddie Chu, a pro-democracy legislator who is also running for district council.