JEFFIE LAM, ALLEN AU-YEUNG, JOYCE NG, NG KANG-CHUNG AND PHILA SIU
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 22 November, 2015, 7:26pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 22 November, 2015, 8:32pm
An elderly voter is taken to a polling station in Hung Hom. Photo: Robin Fall
Coaches and cars are out in force to ferry elderly voters to polling stations as speculation runs rampant that the pro-Beijing camp has arranged free rides for elderly residents of homes for the aged and rural villages while telling them who to back in the district council elections.
At least eight elderly residents of Kam Ma Home of Aged in Hung Hom were taken in the same van in two rounds to the voting station in Hung Hom Municipal Services Building around 2.30pm today, the South China Morning Post has found.
The senior citizens were escorted by two women who claimed to be “volunteers”. It appeared to be an elaborate operation as one man, who was stationed near the home, was holding an apparent list of voters staying there and another was giving each elderly person their identity card before they entered the polling station.
One of the men was later seen in the nearby office of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. The party’s candidate in Hung Hom constituency is Daniel Lam Tak-shing, who is running against incumbent pan-democratic councillor Pius Yum Kwok-tung and independent Wong Chi-keung.
An old lady, when asked who she had voted for, said: “I have forgotten. The young people have told me who to vote for. I don’t know anyone.”
DAB lawmaker Starry Lee (right) promotes a party candidate. Photo: Edward Wong
Another resident said: “They will teach us whom to vote for when we get upstairs.”
The escorts denied they were acting on the orders of any candidate and said they were merely volunteers helping elderly people cast their votes.
A caretaker in Kam Ma Home of Aged admitted that some of their residents were taken to the polling station by volunteers. When asked why a third party got hold of the residents’ identity cards, she only said they would not allow the residents to keep them and refused to take further questions.
In September, the Post reported that a caretaker there, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that Lam had visited the centre almost every month and gave out presents to the residents as he encouraged them to register as voters. Lam had allegedly suggested arranging coaches to send disabled people to the station on polling day.
Lam sidestepped questions at the time about whether such accusations were true and said he was only responding to the government’s call to encourage residents to register as voters.
He refused to respond to the allegations today even after being chased for several blocks.
Almost two out of three people who registered as voters this year were aged 56 or older. Homes for the elderly emerged as the main source of the registration spike.
One candidate promotes himself in a dramatic fashion. Photo: Edward Wong
Kam Ma Home of Aged has seen the number of voters double from 24 to 48 over the past year. This is - well over half of all residents.
In another constituency, Mei Foo North, a helper for non-affiliated candidate Ambrose Cheung Wing-sum was seen asking passers-by if they were prepared to go to the polls and said: “No need to rush. It is OK [to go to the polls] later in the day or in the evening. There will be cars arranged.”
At a rural polling station at a primary school in Pat Heung South, Yuen Long, car after car was seen arriving at the car park there to drop off voters, many of them elderly.
Many of the elderly were escorted by people of unknown identity.
It is not illegal to drive voters to polling stations or ask them who to vote for. But it is an offence to offer voters rewards to get them to vote for certain candidates.
Today’s district council elections are widely seen as a key test of public sentiment since the Occupy protests late last year and also the first general elections since pan-democrats voted down the controversial Beijing-backed political reforms that could have allowed Hongkongers to choose the chief executive election in 2017.
As of 7.30pm, the turnout rate hit 37.15 per cent, higher than the rate of 32.88 per cent at the same time in the 2011 district council elections.
Out of the 18 districts across the territory, the highest turnout rates were recorded in Sham Shui Po with 40.13 per cent and Southern with 39.81 per cent. The district with the lowest turnout was Tuen Mun with 32.36 per cent.
While past experience showed a higher turnout could benefit pan-democrat candidates, Chinese University political scientist Ivan Choy Chi-keung said it was too early to jump to such a conclusion this time. “I am not too surprised by the higher turnout rate. Both the pan-democrat and pro-establishment sides are making big efforts to get people to vote.”
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1881785/hong-kong-district-council-elections-elderly-people-bussed
