Polls opened in Hong Kong's first "patriots only" district council election on Sunday, with officials dismissing concerns of potentially low turnout in a race that has shut out all opposition candidates after a national security crackdown.

The previous election was held at the peak of the huge, sometimes violent, democracy protests in 2019, and recorded a historic-high 71 percent turnout — delivering a landslide victory for the pro-democracy camp.

As part of the widespread clampdown on political opposition — aided by a national security law imposed in 2020 by Beijing — the city authorities overhauled the councils' composition earlier this year.

Authorities have attempted to drum up enthusiasm for the election, covering the city with posters urging Hong Kongers to participate, but on Sunday morning, polling booths appeared to have few voters in the wealthy Mid-Levels area.

"It must be the patriots ruling Hong Kong — this is our principle," a civil engineer surnamed Lee, a lone early voter, said, adding "the election wouldn't be affected just because some (candidates) can't be part of it."

According to new rules announced in May, seats for direct election were slashed from 462 to 88, with the other 382 seats controlled by the city leader, government loyalists and rural landlords.

Candidates are required to seek nominations from three government-appointed committees, which effectively shut out all pro-democracy parties. 

Over 70 percent of the directly elected candidates were committee members.

City leader John Lee said this year's election was "the last piece of the puzzle to implement the principle of patriots ruling Hong Kong," referring to a doctrine Beijing imposed on the financial hub to weed out from public office anyone deemed politically disloyal after the 2019 protests.

"From now on, the district councils would no longer be what they were in the past — which was a platform to destruct and reject the government's administration, to promote Hong Kong independence and to endanger national security," Lee said after he cast his ballot on Sunday.

'One-sided'

The councilors for Hong Kong's 18 districts handle mostly local-level issues — like sanitation, transport routes, or the adequacy of public facilities.

But after Sunday's election, they will "behave as local consultative bodies in name, and as the government's echo chamber in practice," Kenneth Chan, a political scientist at the Hong Kong Baptist University, said.

"This is about achieving 100 percent political control above all," he told Agence France-Presse.       

WITH AFP