Hong Kongers flew in from around the world, lined up until the early hours and turned out in record numbers to vote in elections for the city’s parliament Sunday.
Now, they’re on tenterhooks as the ballots are counted. Preliminary results suggest that a younger generation of more radical, pro-democracy politicians won a larger-than-expected share of votes, potentially rattling nerves in Beijing.
People were still voting at some polling stations at 2 a.m. local time Monday morning, three and half hours after the 10:30 p.m. deadline.
The poll is the first major election in the former British colony — now a Special Administrative Region of China — was rocked by pro-democracy street protests in 2014 .
More than 2.2 million people voted, according to the Electoral Affairs Commission, with a turnout of 58% — up from 53% in 2012. Hong Kong does not permit postal voting or early voting.
“I knew I couldn’t afford to miss it,” first time voter Sophia Cheng, 25, told CNN.
Pro-democracy parties are seeking to maintain a majority of the 35 democratically elected seats in the Legislative Council that allows them to block certain legislation.
LegCo’s 70 seats are usually dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers thanks to a system that allocates votes to business and special interest groups.
Above and beyond
Despite early predictions that turnout would be lackluster, around 400,000 more people voted than in 2012. Lines stretched around the block in certain districts, as many complained online of understaffed polling stations.
In Tai Koo Shing, on Hong Kong Island, voters were still lining up as of 2 a.m. local time Monday.
Others went out of their way to ensure they would be able to take part. Post-graduate student Deryck Chan, 25, flew back from the UK to cast his vote — a journey of 6,000 miles.
“I made sure to book my leave to coincide with the elections,” he told CNN, adding that he did not go as much out of his way as some.
“There are people who literally flew to Hong Kong, landed, went to vote and then hopped on a plane back.”
Others, like 28-year-old Jaco Tang, delayed trips overseas to ensure they’d be able to exercise their democratic rights.
“Every vote is important,” Tang told CNN. “It’s also important to convince your friends and family to support your choices, especially as many of them are swing votes even on (polling day), so it was important for me to stay in Hong Kong to convince them.”
Cheng was eligible to vote in 2012, but was overseas. She said she felt “much more emotionally involved this time” after the 2014 protests known as the “Umbrella Movement.”
Ella Wong, 27, was also studying abroad during the last elections. “I didn’t care about politics that much,” she said, after casting her first vote on Sunday.
“There wasn’t as much of a concern that China was encroaching on Hong Kong’s freedoms (in 2012), and the ‘Umbrella Revolution’ hadn’t yet awoken my concern towards politics.”
Umrella lawmakers
Nathan Law, one of the student leaders of the Umbrella Movement, has been elected on Hong Kong Island, according to preliminary results. His constituency elects six seats and he is currently in second place, with 90% of votes counted.
Law co-founded Demosisto with activist Joshua Wong, who was unable to run as he is not yet 21. Law, 23, will be Hong Kong’s youngest ever lawmaker.
Speaking Sunday before the results, Wong told CNN he hoped the election would prove to be “fair.”
He said Hong Kong has faced an uptick in “political censorship” and the “suppression or interference with autonomy” since the 2014 protests.
Other young former Umbrella Movement protesters also look set to win seats. Including Youngspirations’ Sixtus Baggio Leung, who was endorsed by pro-independence activist Edward Leung. The latter Leung was one of several candidates controversially blocked from standing in this year’s election.
Another Youngspiration candidate, Yau Wai-ching, won a seat in Kowloon West, which returned an all female slate of lawmakers, including university lecturer Lau Siu-lai, known as “The Teacher,” for her impromptu street classes during the 2014 protests.
All the young lawmakers support debating Hong Kong’s constitutional arrangements, including potential independence from China, something that has sparked anger in Beijing and led local officials to suggest “separatist” talk may be illegal.
Eddie Chu, a 38-year-old environmental activist, whose landslide election in New Territories West was the story of the night, told reporters Monday that Hong Kongers have chosen “democratic self-determination.”
Independence from China should be an option in future, he said, according to the South China Morning Post, adding that he would work with similarly-minded lawmakers towards this direction.