The Works：Election Committee election: Performing arts, culture and publication sub sub-sectors & in

Last Friday, much to the surprise of many, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying announced he is not going to run for a second term. It’s fair to say that among those who favour more democracy in Hong Kong there was not an inordinate amount of weeping. But many saw the timing as significant, coming as it did just two days before voting for candidates for the 1,200-member Chief Executive Election Committee. The idea was perhaps that without the polarising figure of CY, the “Anyone but CY” campaign would be weakened, and people in the assorted four sectors and thirty eight subsectors would not go out to vote. Well they did, 46% of around 230,000 eligible voters made their way to the polling stations. The results were good news for the pan democrats, who’ve now managed to get a total of 325 places on the committee. In previous years, many of the sub-sector representatives had been elected uncontested. This time around, many wanted that to change. Three sub-sectors of the Sports, Performing Arts, Culture and Publication sectors actually had a competitive election for the first time.
Often labelled a decidedly divisive figure, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has led to increasing polarisation even in the arts and culture scene. In the past, many local artists steered clear of politics, allowing pro-Beijing figures to dominate the culture sub-sector. This year though, a group of artists, and other cultural workers formed a 15-member group called ARTicipants to challenge that establishment. At the end of November, pro-democrat and pro-reform individuals already won one landslide victory, taking eight out of the ten electable positions in the 27 member Arts Development Council. Songwriter Adrian Chow has twice as many votes as Barbara Fei, who has represented the music industry for two decades. We invited Adrian and the Chairman of the ADC, Wilfred Wong, both of whom also ran to join the Chief Executive election committee, to talk to us.