Hong Kong is voting today for local body elections. Long lines have been installed at polling stations since morning.
Voting continues for the local body elections in Hong Kong on Sunday (today). Long lines are lined up outside polling stations for 452 seats in the city’s 18 district councils. Councils are primarily advisory and have little power. But these elections have taken on symbolic significance in the province of China.
A strong demonstration by the opposition shows that the public still supports the pro-democracy movement, even protests have turned violent.
Before this, there is an uneasy peace. The agitators demanding democracy are quiet, but the metropolis is awaiting their next step. Hong Kong Polytechnic University still has a few students. The police are unable to reach them, and they are not ready to surrender.
Students who ran away from the university or came on the streets are also not surrendering to the police. They exist everywhere in the metropolis. According to an agitating student who has run away from the university, he does not believe that the election on Sunday will be clean. There are a total of 1104 candidates in 452 seats in this election.
A total of 41 million voters will decide their fate, with Hong Kong having a population of 74 million. For the first time, an anti-riot force is being deployed at polling stations to conduct elections peacefully. The Metropolitan Police, with 31 thousand personnel, has been put on full alert. But their deployment will be such that voters do not get apprehensive.
A small number of police personnel will be stationed at polling stations, but they will remain in sufficient numbers at a short distance. It is learned that the army will also be vigilant because of the polling, but it will not come out of its hideout before the need. The People’s Liberation Army has 12,000 personnel stationed at this base in Hong Kong.
