1995 Hong Kong legislative election

1995 Hong Kong legislative election

← 1991 17 September 1995 1996 (Provisional) →

All 60 seats to the Legislative Council
31 seats needed for a majority
Registered2,572,124 (GC) Increase34.18%
Turnout920,567 (35.80%) Decrease3.35pp
  First party Second party Third party
  Martin Lee Tsang Yok-sing
Leader Martin Lee Allen Lee Jasper Tsang
Party Democratic Liberal DAB
Alliance Pro-democracy Pro-Beijing Pro-Beijing
Leader's seat Hong Kong Island East New Territories Northeast Kowloon Central
(defeated)
Last election 16 seats, 52.35% New party New party
Seats won 19 10 6
Seat change Increase4 Decrease5 Increase5
Popular vote 385,428 15,126 142,801
Percentage 42.26% 1.64% 15.66%

  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
  Frederick Fung
Leader Frederick Fung Ambrose Lau Hu Fa-kuang
Party ADPL HKPA LDF
Alliance Pro-democracy Pro-Beijing Pro-Beijing
Leader's seat Kowloon West Election Committee Did not stand
Last election 1 seat, 4.44% New party 3 seats, 5.16%
Seats won 4 1 1
Seat change Increase3 Increase1 Steady
Popular vote 87,072 25,964 11,572
Percentage 9.55% 2.85% 1.27%
Swing Increase5.11pp N/A Decrease3.99pp

Elected candidates by each constituency

Party control before election

Liberals

Party control after election

Pro-democracy camp

The 1995 Hong Kong Legislative Council election for members of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) was held on 17 September 1995. It was the first, and only, fully elected legislative election in the colonial period before transferring Hong Kong's sovereignty to China two years later. The elections returned 20 members from directly elected geographical constituencies, 30 members from indirectly elected functional constituencies, and 10 members from elections committee constituency who were elected by all District Board members.

In consequence of Governor Chris Patten's constitutional reforms, which were strongly opposed by the Beijing government, the nine newly created functional constituencies enfranchised around 2.7 million new voters. As the tensions between Britain and China went on, Hong Kong became rapidly politicised. Party politics was getting in shape as the Beijing-loyalist Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), the pro-business Liberal Party, the pro-democracy Democratic Party and the middle-class and professional oriented Hong Kong Progressive Alliance (HKPA) were set up and filled their candidates in the election.

The pro-democracy forces won another landslide victory after the 1991 Legislative Council elections, sweeping 16 of the 20 directly elected seats in which the Democratic Party alone took 12 directly elected seats. The Democrats returned to the legislature with a total number of 19 seats, far ahead of the Liberal Party's 10, the DAB 6 and the pro-democracy Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood's (ADPL) 4 seats. ADPL young candidate Bruce Liu also defeated DAB chairman Tsang Yok-sing in Kowloon Central, along with many other DAB main candidates being defeated by pro-democrats.

The pro-democrats controlled about half of the seats in the legislature and supported moderate Andrew Wong to become President of the Legislative Council. Since Beijing overthrew the promise of "through train" which guaranteed the legislature could travel through 1997 as the reaction to Chris Patten's reform, the legislature lasted for only 21 months and was replaced by the Beijing-controlled Provisional Legislative Council after the handover of Hong Kong, becoming the only pro-democracy legislature in history.


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