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.
The electoral bases were largely expanded under the 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform carried out by the last colonial governor Chris Patten as the last step of democratisation as following:[1]
Abolishing all appointed seats on the District Boards and Municipal Councils;
Removing all the restrictions on local deletes to China's National People's Congress to stand for election;
Broadening the franchise of certain existing functional constituencies by replacing corporate voting with individual voting;
Introducing nine new functional constituency seats; and
The introduction of an Election Committee of District Board members, which would return 10 members to the Legislative Council using the single transferable vote.[2]
New nine functional constituencies with much larger eligible electorates was created to broaden the franchise to 2.7 million new voters:
Solicitor Ambrose Lau, in the direction of the New China News Agency founded the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance which consisted of mostly pro-business factor of the CCP's united front. Other grassroots leaders were also encouraged by the CCP to stand in the election against the pro-democracy camp.
Succeeding the last election in 1991, Democratic Party, together with other smaller parties, groups and independents in the pro-democracy camp, had another landslide victory again, getting 16 of the 20 geographical constituency seats. Allen Lee, the Chairman of the Liberal Party and the Appointed Member in the LegCo got elected in the geographical constituency direct election. The Chairman of the DAB, Tsang Yok-sing however got defeated by Bruce Liu of pro-democracy Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood in Kowloon Central.
The Government of the People's Republic of China overthrew the promise of the "through train" (letting the members elected in the 1995 election travel safely through 1997 and beyond) and set up the Provisional Legislative Council in 1996, after the proposal package of electoral changes for the 1995 Legislative Council elections that was deemed unconstitutional by the PRC was passed in the Legislative Council.
Ring charts of the election results showing popular vote against seats won, coloured in party colours. Seats won in the election (outer ring) against number of votes (inner ring).
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