Reporting on the Hong Kong 2007 District Council Election

As a foreign exchange student, I did not know about Hong Kong’s political system, except the basic political relationship that Hong Kong has with Mainland China. I thought reporting on a Hong Kong’s election would be boring and difficult (interview with the locals is obviously a challenge for me). However, after doing a series of online research, (with the use of del.icio.us), I have realized how interesting it could be about Hong Kong’s politics – having its own (independent) political system, yet is integrated/under another totally unique (P.R. China) political system. Thus, here comes my first story angle to report on this particular Hong Kong district council election – how it is done under ‘one country, two systems’.

In order to continue and further my research on this election event over the semester, I have saved links of relevant information on my del.icio.us webpage, and categorized them into three groups, which are information about ‘Hong Kong and Hong Kong district councils’, ‘Hong Kong politics and political parties’ and ‘Hong Kong 2007 DC Election’. I wasn’t able to read any local Hong Kongers’ web blogs at this point to get to know their opinions of the various issues associated with the election, but I know I will be able to link to some useful bloggers’ sites shortly through our class Google group, wiki group and blog site.

District Council Homepage and District Council of
Hong Kong  are links to information of Hong Kong’s 18 district councils. All those 18 constituencies seem to have particular aspects to be reported on, especially the District of Wan Chai (See Wan Chai info at Wan Chai District Council website), since there’s an increasing controversial issue in this area between the new and the old, the rich and the poor. Besides, the differences among the 18 constituencies, election procedures and tactics could also be an interesting topic – showing how Hong Kong being a small region, though has varied geographic areas (pollution, environmental issues), varied races of residents (Oriental, Western, Middle-eastern etc.), cultures and demands of life styles. Here’s a link to general Hong Kong information on World FactBook website.

Hong Kong Politics and political parties information can be found at the following links, Politics of Hong Kong and List of political parties in Hong Kong. Of all the parties in
Hong Kong, I particularly paid attention to the Hong Kong Civic Party, because it was founded just last year, it’s new and young, and with a lot of young people joining in. I think it would be more approachable to get interviews from those young candidates of the Party and their opinions towards Hong Kong political issues could reflect what Hong Kong young generation see the future of
Hong Kong and its democracy developments. Here’s link to introduction to Hong Kong Civic Party, Civic Party.

Apart from that, there are some useful links to local English websites about the DC Election, Hong Kong District Council election, 2007 District Council Election (Electoral Affairs Commission) and DC election nominations open Oct 2. Very specific and detailed information are provided on those sites, although I not yet have time to read through and understand all of them so far. During my online research, I have read some articles in particular stressing the democratic impact and effects the election will have on Hong Kong society (Read Leading democrat re-emerges for
Hong Kong election and Hong Kong Elections – the need for proper democracy ), and I think this will be a key issue to be covered a lot by various media over the next few months.

As this Hong Kong District Council Election going on, there will be another election, the LegCo By-election happening following it on December 2. I have read the article linked from Rebecca’s class blog written by a foreign commentator about the two elections not being held at the same time. As this issue has been addressed, it is likely to be talked about by media and bloggers. This could also be an interesting topic, especially when Hong Kong’s political system being compared by foreign political systems.

Those are very general ideas of stories about the coming DC election at the moment. As my research and reporting going on, I will go more specific into particular topics later on.