Hong Kong held two elections over the past weekend. One on Friday drew more than 200,000 voters to several polling places. The second one on Sunday involved fewer than 2,000 electors in one location. Only the second one counted.
Three people were vying to become Hong Kong’s third Chief Executive since the former British Crown Colony returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Only two of them had a chance of winning. The victor, Leung Chun-ying, garnered 689 of the 1,132 votes cast by the territory’s Election Committee. He takes office July 1.
The same three candidate names appeared on the ballots of a mock election held two days earlier and organized by the Hong Kong University to demonstrate the need for more direct elections. In this instance, "none of the above" (technically blank ballots) won 55 percent of the vote, an indicator of how the general population viewed both the candidates and the election process.
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