| Turnout Shows HK Has Critical Mass of Electors for Constitutional Improvement |
|
The voter turnout rate in Sunday's (December 10) Legislative Council Hong Kong Island By-election has shown that Hong Kong already has a critical mass of electors that would further Hong Kong's constitutional improvement, the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Michael Suen, said after the closing of the polls.
Mr Suen said that although the voter turnout rate had gone down by nine per cent to 208,672, it has shown that: "There is a certain critical mass in terms of the number of voters who turned out to vote every time. It is more than 30 per cent." "In the years to come, there will be more elections. And more elections mean more people will participate in it. We need to have a culture of elections so that we can take forward constitutional improvements in accordance with the Basic Law. And so from this point of view, we should not be too disappointed with the result this evening," Mr Suen added. Mr Suen also noted that by-elections generally attract fewer voters than general elections, a fact that was borne out in overseas elections and repeated in yesterday's election. Out of the 627,147 registered voters in the Hong Kong Island Geographical Constituency, 33.27 per cent turned out to cast their ballots. End/ Monday, December 11, 2000 |