2012 Hong Kong legislative election

2012 Hong Kong legislative election

← 2008 9 September 2012 2016 →
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All 70 seats to the Legislative Council 36 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Registered	3,466,201 (GC) 2.79%
Turnout	1,838,722 (53.05%) 7.85pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Tam Yiu-chung Alan Leong Albert Ho Party DAB Civic Democratic Alliance Pro-Beijing Pan-democracy Pan-democracy Leader's seat New Territories West Kowloon East District Council (Second) Last election 10 seats, 22.92% 5 seats, 13.66% 8 seats, 20.63% Seats won 13 6 6 Seat change 3 1 2 Popular vote 366,140 255,007 247,220 Percentage 20.22% 14.08% 13.65% Swing 2.70pp 0.42pp 6.98pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Lam Shuk-yee Miriam Lau Lee Cheuk-yan Party FTU Liberal Labour Alliance Pro-Beijing Pro-Beijing Pan-democracy Leader's seat Did not stand Hong Kong Island (defeated) New Territories West Last election 4 seats, 5.70% 7 seats, 4.33% New party Seats won 6 5 4 Seat change 2 2 1 Popular vote 127,857 48,702 112,140 Percentage 7.06% 2.64% 6.19% Swing 1.36pp 1.64pp N/A   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Christopher Lau Andrew Leung and others Regina Ip Party People Power Economic Synergy NPP Alliance Pan-democracy Pro-Beijing Pro-Beijing Leader's seat Hong Kong Island (defeated) Industrial (First) Hong Kong Island Last election New party New party New party Seats won 3 3 2 Seat change 1 1 1 Popular vote 176,250 5,717 68,097 Percentage 9.73% 0.32% 3.76% Swing N/A N/A N/A
Result by parties and camps Result by parties
Party control before election Pro-Beijing camp Party control after election Pro-Beijing camp

The 2012 Hong Kong Legislative Council election was held on 9 September 2012 for the 5th Legislative Council (LegCo) since the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The election was for the new total of 70 seats in LegCo, ten more than previously, with 35 members elected in geographical constituencies through direct elections, and 35 members in functional constituencies.^[1] Under new arrangements agreed in a contentious LegCo vote in 2010, five District Council (Second) functional constituency seats each represent all 18 District Councils of Hong Kong voted for by all resident voters in Hong Kong (who did not have a vote in any other functional constituency), effectively increasing the number of seats elected with universal suffrage to 40.^[2]

The pro-Beijing camp scored a major success, maintaining its dominance in the functional constituencies and winning 17 of the 35, nearly half, of the geographical constituency seats, which were considered to be the stronghold of the pan-democracy camp. The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the flagship Beijing-loyalist party, won 13 seats in total, more than double the tally of either the pro-democracy Democratic Party or Civic Party, or of its sister organisation, the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), which each won six seats.

The Democratic Party, the flagship pro-democracy party, suffered the worst defeat since its creation in 1994, winning only six seats and lost all its seats in the New Territories West, while the radical democrats League of Social Democrats and the newly formed People Power doubled their total votes. Despite the addition of five new geographical constituency seats, the pan-democrats won one seat fewer than in the 2008 election; infighting within the camp was blamed.^[3] The Civic Party failed in their election strategy as two of their incumbents, Audrey Eu and Tanya Chan, placed second on the lists in Hong Kong Island and New Territories West both received over 70,000 votes, far more than other lists, but still unable to get re-elected.^[4]

The pro-business Liberal Party's chairwoman Miriam Lau failed to gain a seat in Hong Kong Island, winning the least seat in party history although James Tien regained his seat in New Territories East. Both Miriam Lau from the Liberals and Albert Ho from the Democrats resigned their seats as chairs after the defeat.

The pan-democracy and pro-Beijing camps both placed three lists in contest of the five new District Council (Second) functional constituency seats. Three of them went to the Democrats Albert Ho and James To and Frederick Fung from the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL). The Beijing-loyalists could only win two seats with FTU's Chan Yuen-han and DAB's Starry Lee each got one seat. Veteran Lau Kong-wah became the only DAB candidate who was placed first on a candidate list but lost in the election.