2021 Macanese legislative election

2021 Macanese legislative election

12 September 2021
13 of the 33 seats in the Legislative Assembly
Turnout	42.38% (14.84 pp)
Party Leader % Seats +/– Pro-Beijing parties ACUM Si Ka Lon 20.14 3 +2 UPD Ho Sut Heng 17.99 2 0 UGM Ian Soi Kun 12.73 2 0 UNIPRO Leong Hong Sai 11.43 2 +1 AGMM Wong Kit Cheng 10.78 2 +1 Pro-democracy parties NE José Pereira Coutinho 13.80 2 +1 Unaffiliated parties Sinergia Ron Lam U tou 6.64 1 +1 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. President before President after Ko Hoi In OMKC Ko Hoi In OMKC

Legislative elections were held in Macau on 12 September 2021. This legislative election will return 33 members of the Legislative Assembly of Macau, with 14 directly elected by all electorates, 12 indirectly elected by special interest groups and 7 appointed by the Chief Executive 15 days after the announcement of the election results.

The voter turnout rate for the 2021 Legislative Assembly direct election stood at 42 per cent after polls closed, the lowest rate reported since the establishment of the Macau Special Administrative Region in 1999.

Mass disqualification

The Electoral Affairs Commission for this legislative election unprecedentedly disqualified some 21 candidates who intended to contest in the direct elections. As a result of those 21 hopefuls having been barred from running, five candidate lists consequently became unqualified due to the electoral requirement of a minimum of 4 contenders in each list.

All pro-democracy candidates, except José Pereira Coutinho's candidate list, were barred from running in the election. The mass disqualification created shock as Macau has been seen as "obedient" to the Chinese government, while disqualifying election candidates, which had happened in Hong Kong before, was believed to be unlikely in Macau.

Results

The turnout of the election was only 42.38%, marking the lowest since the 1988 election. The mass disqualification was said to be the reason of residents not voting, but officials claimed the weather and pandemic as main factors instead. The number of invalid and blank ballots broke record, with some writing "trashed election", "democracy", name of disqualified candidate Antonio Ng, or foul languages.

Pro-democracy camp won 2 seats only out of 33, whilst the remaining were under the control of pro-government and pro-Beijing parties and politicians as expected.

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Macau United Citizens Association	26,599	20.14	3	+2
	Union for Development	23,761	17.99	2	0
	Macau-Guangdong Union	16,813	12.73	2	0
	Union for Promoting Progress	15,102	11.43	2	+1
	Alliance for a Happy Home	14,232	10.78	2	+1
Pro-Beijing camp		96,507	73.07	11	+2
	New Hope	18,232	13.80	2	+1
Pro-democracy camp		18,232	13.80	2	–2
	Synergy Power	8,764	6.64	1	+1
	Civil Watch	3,729	2.82	0	–1
	Strength of Dialogue	1,433	1.09	0	New
	Collective Energy of Macau	918	0.70	0	New
	Powers of Political Thought	834	0.63	0	0
	Ou Mun Kong I	778	0.59	0	0
	Platform for Young People	542	0.41	0	New
	Alliance for the Promotion of the Basic Law of Macao	334	0.25	0	New
Unaffiliated		17,332	13.12	1	0
Functional constituencies and appointees
Macau Union of Employers Interests				4	0
Macau Union of Professional Interests				3	+1
Excellent Culture and Sport Union				2	0
Federation of Employees Associations				2	0
Association for the Promotion of Social Services and Education				1	0
Chief Executive appointees				7	0
Total		132,071	100.00	33	0
Valid votes		132,071	96.21
Invalid votes		2,067	1.51
Blank votes		3,141	2.29
Total votes		137,279	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		323,907	42.38
Source: Boletim Oficial