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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

As everyone knows, New Territories West has the largest number of voters, seats as well as candidate lists. In this election, there were altogether 8 seats in New Territories West, which accounted for almost a quarter of the directly-elected seats in Hong Kong. A total of 12 lists took part in this competition. Unless there are significant changes in the electoral system or the boundary of the constituency, the scenario in New Territories West will sooner or later be found in other constituencies. Furthermore, New Territories West is the meeting point and the battlefield between the traditional and modern political cultures. Therefore, studying the political development of New Territories West will serve us a considerable source of inspiration in mastering the trend of the whole political landscape in Hong Kong.

Our data was collected on the election day outside 28 polling stations in the constituency. It comprised 2,462 successful cases and 348 partially completed cases, with a response rate of 63.5%. The research design and other information of the survey will be published in our HKU POP Site by the end of this week.

Since there were many lists in New Territories West, as the democratic camp alone had already had 6 lists, the situation looked rather complex. However, we could approach this step-by-step and start with the political spectrum of the lists.

First of all, basing on the self-reported political affiliations of various lists, it could be easily identified that Albert Chan, Lee Wing-Tat's list, Albert Ho's list, Leung Yiu-Chung's list, Lee Cheuk-Yan's list and Yim Tin-Sang's list belonged to the democratic camp. No doubt Tam Yiu-Chung belonged to the pro-China camp, while Selina Chow from the Liberal Party (LP) belonged to another category. Besides, since Chow Ping-Tim, Stephen Char, Ng Tak-Leung and Lui Hau-Tuen obtained less than 2% of vote shares, we will neither classify nor analyze them.

Next, a simple method, which was proved to be extremely effective in other constituencies, was used to position each list in the political spectrum. This was to use the proportion of supporters who have participated in the July 1 Demonstration among the lists. Table 1 reveals that, excluding the ADPL's Yim Tin-Sang who had only obtained 3% of vote shares, the positions of the 7 winning lists from the 3 major camps in the political spectrum were very clear. Tam Yiu-Chung's list occupied one extreme of the spectrum, Selina Chow's list was in the middle, and the 5 lists from the democratic camp clustered together in another extreme of the spectrum, while Albert Chan was the extremest among them. Besides, no matter using the proportions of voters taking part in the July 1 Demonstration, or expressing dissatisfaction with the HKSAR Government, or calling for universal suffrage as the indicators, the above spectrums were rather consistent.

If we added Yim Tin-Sang's list into the spectrum, his position should lie between Selina Chow's list and Leung Yiu-Chung's list, yet closer to Selina Chow's list and far away from the democratic camp's lists, because only 19% of his supporters had taken part in the July 1 Demonstration.

Yim Tin-Sang's list was in the middle of the political spectrum and got overwhelmingly defeated. It was mainly because his district vote source was narrow, and the middle position was occupied by the LP's Selina Chow, making him unable to win more votes. It will be very difficult for the ADPL to expand to the west, unless Yim Tin-Sang can open up wider support beyond Tuen Mun, or absorb more moderate voters, including the more moderate New Territories indigenous residents.

This time, many moderate voters in New Territories West casted their votes to Selina Chow's list. According to our exit poll result, among the supporters of Selina Chow's list, 43% claimed the political party factor was their main consideration (Table 2). This was a rather significant figure. Among the supporters of the LP's Chairman, James Tien in New Territories West , the respective figure was only 20%. It appears that the LP enjoyed quite a lot of space for its further development in New Territories West. Taking a look at all constituencies, only 4 lists got nearly or over 50% concerning the political party factor. They were the DAB and DP's lists on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon West. It is surprising that the LP could also achieve similar result in New Territories West.

Back to Table 1, among the supporters of Selina Chow, 72% emphasized more on the economic and social policies. This was a very high percentage, and was higher than James Tien's 64%. All phenomenon showed that, the moderate line adopted by the LP had a larger market in New Territories West than New Territories East. Although James Tien in New Territories East obtained 18,000 votes more than Selina Chow in New Territories West, James Tien mainly relied on his fame, whereas Selina Chow's supporters had a stronger party sense.

Regarding the party sense, Table 2 reveals that, the party sense of supporters of Tam Yiu-Chung's list was also not weak, with 34% claiming the political party factor was their main consideration. On the democratic camp's side, over one-third of supporters of both Albert Ho's and Lee Wing-Tat's lists claimed their main consideration was the political party factor, which was far more than Albert Chan, Leung Yiu-Chung's and Lee Cheuk Yan's lists. Since it is clear that the democratic camp adopted the electoral strategy of vote allocation per district, the voters themselves did not need to tactically vote deliberately. This kind of tacit strategy is one of the factors leading to the democratic camp's success in New Territories West.

Since the strategy of vote allocation per district was practised by the democratic camp, supporters of the various lists within the camp possessed quite a lot of similarities in their background. Table 3 shows that, the majority of the supporters of the 5 lists from the democratic camp were aged 30 - 49. This was different from Tam Yiu-Chung's list, but similar to Selina Chow's list. With regard to the academic attainment and occupation, the supporters of Tam Yiu-Chung's list apparently had lower education level, and fewer of them were professionals. More professionals with higher education level were found in Selina Chow's list. The democratic camp's lists were near to Selina Chow's list, yet its proportion of the professionals was smaller. These background analyses demonstrated that in New Territories West, the vote source of the LP was nearer to the middle-class than the democratic camp. Selina Chow, with her fame, penetrated into the middle-class of New Territories West, overrode the district vote allocation mechanism of the democratic camp and reduced the winning chance of the second tiers of the democratic camp's candidates. This was a major success of the LP in this election and the situation was similar to the Article 45 Concern Group's.

We can use figures in Table 4 to have a more in-depth examination of this phenomenon. Figures reveal that, excluding Yeung Fuk-Kwong and Man Yun-Fei who obtained only 3% and 1% of vote shares respectively in the last election, among the voters who supported Tam Yiu-Chung's list 4 years ago, 84% continued to support Tam Yiu-Chung's list, whereas 9% flowed to Selina Chow's list. Among the democratic camp's lists, while relatively more Albert Chan's supporters had shifted to Li Wing-Tat's list, the other 4 lists could keep around 55% of vote shares for themselves. Another 20-30% flowed among several lists within the democratic camp and this should be the result of vote allocation per district. We can see that, Selina Chow had in fact absorbed votes from various lists evenly. Again, the LP's inter-district strategy was proved.

Last of all, 2 points worth mentioning here. First, the analysis of New Territories West again showed that, the newly registered voters over these 4 years did not overwhelmingly support a certain camp. The democratic camp thought that, the more new voters, the more favourable to them in the election. This is only their own wishful thinking.

Also, exit poll figures show that, neither did the New Territories indigenous residents support a certain camp overwhelmingly. Some village residents may give people a conservative image. Yet, the definition of indigenous residents has already exceeded the limit of the village, while the countryside has become complex and diversified.

With the increasing size of each constituency and number of seats, each constituency will become diversified. Moderate voters will continue to emerge and move to one side. The traditional district thinking and inflexible analytic concepts are no longer applicable. This is the message New Territories West brings to us.

Table 1: Voters' political orientation - Proportion of voters who:

	Y.C.Tam's list	Selina Chow's list	Y.C.Leung's list	C.Y.Lee's list	Albert Ho's list	W.T.Lee's list	Albert Chan
Took part in July 1 Demonstration	7%	13%	31%	31%	31%	41%	43%
Were satisfied with HKSARG	29%	9%	5%	4%	5%	4%	4%
Were "half" satisfied with HKSARG	45%	41%	36%	34%	36%	30%	27%
Were dissatisfied with HKSARG	20%	47%	57%	61%	56%	65%	65%
Chose basing on candidates' political attitude	25%	24%	15%	24%	44%	40%	28%
Chose basing on candidates' economic and livelihood policies	57%	72%	78%	62%	49%	52%	56%
Supported direct election of CE now	4%	9%	12%	19%	15%	17%	18%
Supported direct election of all LC members now	7%	12%	17%	18%	23%	27%	25%
Supported direct election of CE by 2012	37%	47%	66%	60%	62%	63%	74%
Supported direct election of all LC members by 2012	37%	48%	66%	58%	59%	66%	66%

Table 2: Main considerations for choosing candidates

	Y.C.Tam's list	Selina Chow's list	Y.C.Leung's list	C.Y.Lee's list	Albert Ho's list	W.T.Lee's list	Albert Chan
Candidate factor	47%	47%	74%	71%	45%	53%	85%
Political party factor	34%	43%	9%	17%	38%	36%	6%
Combination of list	11%	5%	8%	6%	8%	2%	1%
Vote allocation concern	0%	1%	3%	5%	6%	4%	3%

Table 3: Voters' background - Proportion of:

	Y.C.Tam's list	Selina Chow's list	Y.C.Leung's list	C.Y.Lee's list	Albert Ho's list	W.T.Lee's list	Albert Chan
18-29 years old	17%	23%	34%	43%	21%	22%	25%
30-49 years old	39%	55%	47%	42%	51%	44%	55%
50 years old or above	44%	21%	19%	15%	28%	34%	19%
Voters possessing primary education level or below	31%	8%	14%	12%	19%	20%	10%
Voters possessing tertiary education level or above	16%	47%	43%	43%	33%	31%	42%
Executives and professionals	15%	43%	32%	29%	29%	30%	42%
Voters who have not voted before	33%	32%	25%	31%	28%	24%	30%
New Territories indigenous residents	25%	17%	23%	26%	25%	22%	18%

Table 4: Flow of votes in 2 elections

	Y.C.Tam's list	Y.C.Leung's list	C.Y.Lee	Albert Ho's list	W.T.Lee's list	Albert Chan's list	Have not voted last time
Y. C. Tam's list	84%	5%	8%	8%	5%	4%	26%
Selina Chow's list	9%	8%	8%	4%	5%	4%	12%
Y. C. Leung's list	0%	54%	13%	2%	6%	10%	10%
C. Y. Lee's list	0%	2%	53%	7%	7%	4%	12%
Albert Ho's list	2%	5%	9%	57%	9%	3%	13%
W. T. Lee's list	0%	12%	3%	8%	56%	30%	11%
Albert Chan	1%	8%	0%	3%	11%	37%	8%