The Functional Constituencies in Hong Kong

From The Guardian's report on the 9/12 Hong Kong Legco elections:

Hong Kong's democrats yesterday fell short of expectations in elections to the legislative council after voters, wary of alienating China's communist rulers, chose the stability offered by the Beijing camp.

The election on Sunday for the 60-seat legislative council had been portrayed by democrats as close to a referendum on gaining the right to elect all the city's leaders.

"I am disappointed. It shows how unacceptable the electoral system is," said Martin Lee, ex-chairman of the Democratic party, referring to the Byzantine proportional representation system.

Pro-democracy candidates won 18 directly elected seats, just one more than in the last election, and the pro-Beijing camp took 12, up from seven in 2000.

Results for the other 30 seats, elected by small professional groups, brought the camps' totals to almost the same as in 2000. The Beijing camp took 34, unchanged, the democrats gained three to 25 and independents won one, down from four.

Why is this being referred to as being 'byzantine'?  The table below shows the election results.  Eleven of the thiry seats were uncontested.  Of the contested seats, some of them are based upon a turnout of just several hundred voters.  For example, in the Financial Services, Chim Pui-chong won by 275 out of 532 votes.  What is the Financial Services sector?  These are the owners of stock brokerage houses, and Chim Pui-chong's base are the smaller retail stock brokerages.

Functional Constituency	Candidate(s)	Votes Received	Results
Heung Yee Kuk	LAM WAI KEUNG	N/A	Uncontested
Agriculture and Fisheries	WONG YUNG KAN	N/A	Uncontested
Insurance	CHAN BERNARD CHARNWUT	N/A	Uncontested
Transport	LAU KIN YEE MIRIAM	N/A	Uncontested
Education	YU KAI CHUN	9,155
	CHEUNG MAN KWONG	44,517	Elected
Legal	TONG KEI YUK JUDY	280
	NG NGOI YEE MARGARET	2,597	Elected
	KWONG KA YIN	598
Accountancy	TAM HEUNG MAN	3,393	Elected
	WONG WANG TAI	154
	LEUNG WING ON LOUIS	604
	CHAN PO FUN PETER	603
	CHOW KWONG FAI EDWARD	1,066
	CHAN MO PO	3,356
	WU SHEK CHUN WILFRED	244
	CHOI SAU YUK	444
	KUNG YIU FAI ELVE	1,815
Medical	LO WING LOK	2,667
	MA KAM CHUEN JOHNNY	419
	KWOK KA KI	3,197	Elected
Health Services	SIU KWAI FUNG	2,669
	MAK KWOK FUNG MICHAEL	6,396
	LEE KOK LONG JOSEPH	9,127	Elected
	PONG SCARLETT OI LAN	3,027
Engineering	HO CHUNG TAI RAYMOND	2,973	Elected
	LUK WANG KWONG	2,216
Architectural, Surveying and Planning	NG WING FAI STANLEY	527
	NISSIM ROGER ANTHONY	547
	LAU SAU SHING PATRICK	1,130	Elected
	LAU PING CHEUNG KAIZER	616
	CHAN YIU FAI	515
	CHAN JOR KIN KENNETH	649
Labour	KWONG CHI KIN	288	Elected
	LI FUNG YING	322	Elected
	CHAN KWOK KEUNG	105
	WONG KWOK HING	278	Elected
Social Welfare	CHEUNG KWOK CHE	3,199
	FANG MENG SANG CHRISTINE	1,903
	CHEUNG CHIU HUNG	3,263	Elected
Real Estate and Construction	SHEK LAI HIM ABRAHAM	N/A	Uncontested
Tourism	YIP HING NING FREDDY	80
	YOUNG HOWARD	349	Elected
	TSE WAI CHUN PAUL	295
Commercial (First)	LAM KIN FUNG JEFFREY	N/A	Uncontested
Commercial (Second)	WONG YU HONG PHILIP	N/A	Uncontested
Industrial (First)	LEUNG KWAN YUEN ANDREW	N/A	Uncontested
Industrial (Second)	LUI MING WAH	N/A	Uncontested
Finance	LI KWOK PO DAVID	N/A	Uncontested
Financial Services	CHIM PUI CHUNG	275	Elected
	WU KING CHEONG	87
	CHEUNG WAH FUNG CHRISTOPHER	92
	FUNG KA PUN	61
	FUNG CHI KIN	17
Sports, Performing Arts, Culture and Publication	LAM HON KIN	358
	FOK TIMOTHY TSUN TING	800	Elected
Import and Export	WONG TING KWONG	N/A	Uncontested
Textiles and Garment	KWAN KAM YUEN	514
	LAU YAU FUN SOPHIE	1,816	Elected
Wholesale and Retail	FUNG LEUNG LO	896
	CHAN TIM SHING MANUEL	403
	FANG KANG VINCENT	1,145	Elected
Information Technology	TAM WAI HO	1,578
	SIN CHUNG KAI	1,946	Elected
	LEUNG MUN YEE	176
Catering	CHEUNG YU YAN TOMMY	2,488	Elected
	WONG SIN YING	566
	CHAN SHU YING JOSEPHINE	849
District Council	LAU WONG FAT	267	Elected
	KWONG KWOK CHUEN COSMAS	126
	AU CHI YUEN	43

Intuitively, it does not seem to makes that the democrats should get more than 60% of the popular vote (and therefore 18 of 30 directly elected seats; see previous post) but end up with only 25 out of 60 total seats.  Is this type of disproportionate representation true democracy?

I will let Elsie Tu explain the logic (Chapter 18, Colonial Hong Kong In The Eyes Of Elsie Tu):

Hong Kong's very existence depends upon keeping a balance between its only two assets: capital and labour.  If capital gains the upper hand, the workers may suffer, as they do even in the United States, which claims to be the number-one democracy in the world.  If workers gain the upper hand, the economy could collapse, either because businesses would pull out of Hong Kong or because small businesses would go bankrupt due to worker demands for more benefits.  It seems to me that we need a fifty-fifty arrangement of the post-2007 term of office of the Legislative Council, in order to ensure a good balance between capital and labour.  ...

If a fifty-fifty arrangement is to be successful, I suggest that we need to ensure that the Functional Constituencies cover all sectors of the population and that all possible avenues for corruption or personal influence are eradicated.

If, on the other hand, we were to opt for direct election for all seats by universal suffrage, I see some weaknesses in what is the Western concept of democracy.  Labour far outweighs capital in terms of voter numbers, and as we have discovered in Hong Kong, those who go for direct election are generally social workers, teachers, lawyers and other traditionally liberal professionals.  Many of them understand little or nothing about economics, technology and other modern factors of today's world.  Highly qualified people in advanced technology seldom have the time or the interest to spend on electioneering, yet their advice is essential in a modern society.  Good government needs a balance between the social worker and the technocrat.  Modernization and economic progress could be hindered unless there is a balance between those who represent social and technical expertise, as well as capital to oil the wheels of the latter.  All, in fact, need to work in harmony with equal rights.

I believe, though am willing to be corrected if I am wrong, that democracy in the Western world is not the 'democracy and human rights' that they preach to developing countries.  In the United States, for example, the vast majority of voters are either low-paid workers or lower and middle-income groups.  In spite of America's claims to 'democracy', it is clear that no one can become either a president, a congressman, a senator or a governor unless he receives donations for his road-show campaign from rich companies and corporations, and once elected, the winning candidate owes the donors a debt, so he legislates accordingly.  Anyone who doubts this should read The Buying Of The President by Charles Lewis, which gives the details, researched by the Center for Public Integrity, of donations made to most American politicians during the course of their campaigns for the presidency or any of the other high offices just mentioned.  Such donations are understood to be debts to be paid by supporting legislature favourable to the donors.  A fairly balanced legislature would be expected to eradicate most of these weaknesses on the part of both labour and capital.  After all, what is 'democracy' if it caters to only one sector or another of the population?  It is not surprising that fewer and fewer people are going to the polls.

This can be illustrated by the example of Financial Sector, of which 532 companies voted.  The winner Chim Pui-chong has immediately announced that he will be asking the government to study imposing a minimum commission fee for stock transactions.  While competition is good, the smaller brokerages do not have the economy of scale that the large brokerages enjoy and the free market may be turned into a price-colluding oligopoly someday.  This is a fair issue.  

But will a directly elected Legislative Councilor understand this highly technical matter?  Even if he/she learns enough about the issue, how willing is he/she willing to fight for it?  After all, the bread-and-butter issues for the directly elected Legislative Council are those affect large number of voters, such as income limits on welfare qualification, and so on.  In the long run, an oligopoly will not benefit the stock-buying citizens as a whole but this argument will be too complicated to be listed in the list of accomplishments.

Of course, the Legislative Councilor can be 'motivated' to push for an issue, as when the proverbial bagman shows up in the middle of the night with a suitcase of unmarked cash.  This is the sort of thing that is seen in directly elected democracies such as the United States or Taiwan, but not in Hong Kong.  Clearly, a pre-condition for a transition to complete direct election is to see how the needs of the functional constituencies will be satisfied in the future without leading to corrupting influences.