Following the Beijing-Hong Kong government’s neutering of Hong Kong’s electoral system by drastically reducing the proportion of directly elected seats and setting up the right to nominate, which is almost impossible to run for, the Secretary for Justice, Mr. Eva Cheng, even said in a television program on April 4 that “voting is a civic responsibility” and that “people should not cast blank votes. “, and even indicated that he would “study” whether the current “regulation” was sufficient; earlier on the day (3), Hong Kong’s Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Tsang Kwok-wai, claimed that he would consider adjusting the legislation when it was amended The Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr. Tsang Kwok-wai, claimed that he would consider amending the legislation to “target the advocacy of blank votes”, implying that the act of asking people to cast blank votes would be criminalized; and Legislative Council Member, Mr. Tse Wai-chun, claimed that “calling for blank votes may violate the National Security Law”. This series of statements indicate that the SAR government will soon make it a criminal offence for people to cast blank or spoiled votes in elections, or to call for people to cast blank and spoiled votes.
However, what is incomprehensible to everyone is that what is the threat to the government if they cast blank or invalid votes? In Hong Kong’s electoral system, it has never been said that the result of an election will be affected if there are more spoiled votes than ballots, so what if there are too many spoiled votes? So what if there are too many invalid votes? Neither will the Chief Executive step down, nor will the election be invalidated. Therefore, to drag invalid votes to the so-called national security law is simply an unwarranted and unlimited extension!
Besides, how many spoiled votes will there be? Didn’t the Chinese Communist Party say that this is a way for the NPC to “improve” the system in Hong Kong? Didn’t the Chinese Communist Party say that 2.385 million Hong Kong people had signed in support of the NPC’s decision? The number of signatures in support of the NPC’s decision is not as many as the 2,943,842 voters in the 2019 District Council election, but it is already 90,000 more than the total number of voters in the 2016 Legislative Council election – 2,292,273! That is, more people supported the NPC than voted for the Legislative Council! So what is the government afraid of invalid votes? Unless the number of supporters of the NPC is falsified? Otherwise, what does the government need to be afraid of?
Therefore, unless the number of invalid votes exceeds the number of supporting votes, what is the fear of invalid votes? But when the government is bent on making Hong Kong’s electoral system all about the numbers they have chosen, then either the voter turnout will plummet or there will only be two possibilities of more spoiled votes than elected votes. Do you want to waste public money? Or do they want to prove that they are not recognized by the public? When it is decided to abolish the “one country, two systems” and turn the parliament into a one-man house, and after having to pass so many hurdles to run for election, what is the purpose of leaving 20 seats out of 90? Do you still want to deceive yourself and others? Why not change all the seats to appointed ones? Or simply abolish the Legislative Council?
Besides, in today’s situation, even if someone is prohibited from “calling” for a blank vote, so what? Do you think the public is retarded and will only do it if others “appeal” to them? Or do you think that if you tell a lie a hundred times, it will come true and then the public will obediently choose the government-appointed pseudo-democratic camp? Will the public be forbidden to cast blank votes again? And then we have to monitor every single ballot? Will the government’s acceptance be better if the turnout rate is low? Or will the public be forced to vote, just like the North Korean government, to create a 99% support for the government’s voting results? Is the intention to scare away all investors and make Europe and the United States withdraw from Hong Kong by making Hong Kong, the international financial capital, look like North Korea?
This practice of voting and forbidding people to vote in vain; of electing and forbidding people to choose is, from the beginning to the end, a cover-up, and everyone will only regard it as “the king’s new clothes”, a laughing stock after tea. Not only can this approach not whitewash the peace, but on the contrary, it scares all investors and makes the government’s credibility even lower, which is a worse approach than admitting that you are running a dictatorship.
Recent Comments