Hong Kong: En route in the most important district election campaign in Asia

Sha Tin, a neighborhood of just over 600,000 in the northeast of Hong Kong: Jimmy Sham, 32, campaign candidate for Sunday's district election, stands in front of the fish market and listens to a woman who's in trouble with the police, a teacher whose Son barricaded himself with other students in a university. Passers-by stretch his thumb in passing or shake his hand. "It's going well," says Sham, "but we have not won yet."

Tuen Mun, another district in the northwest, nearly 500,000 inhabitants: In the election office of the pro-Chinese candidate Junius Ho, 57, sit three women and wait. The candidate has been held up, urgent business in the city parliament. "Seven out of ten people here are on our side," says a woman who is trimming the hedges in front of the door.

Zhu Xiang / XinHua / DPA

Junius Ho, controversial candidate of the government camp speaks at a campaign stand with passers-by: "Everyone has their good and bad sides"

Jimmy Sham and Junius Ho are two of the most prominent candidates in an election campaign that the world would hardly notice, as Hong Kong has not been raging for months in a conflict that almost threatens to tear the city apart. Sham and Ho stand for the two camps between which runs the ditch that divides society, and even many families.

As little as the left, derived from the gay movement Sham and the ultra-right Ho connects - they have one thing in common: on both apparently politically motivated attacks have been committed. Jimmy Sham was beaten bloody by unidentified gunmen in August and October, and stabbed Junius Ho on November 6.

Both were in the hospital, now they are back in the election campaign, Ho mainly on the social media, Sham, supported on a crutch, in the pedestrian street in Sha Tin. This is about small and big things, problems at work, better bus connections, horrendous rents.

To translate the energy of the protests into votes

Bernhard Zand / DER SPIEGEL

Jimmy Sham

Traditionally that cuts

Government camp in the local elections better than the so-called pandemocrats, which includes Shams "League of Social Democrats". "The governing parties are well connected in the neighborhoods," says party leader Avery Ng, "and they have more money to spend." But in the current election campaign, it's not just about local politics, but about converting the energy of the protest movement into countable votes. "And none of us can do that as well as Jimmy."

Sham is Hong Kong's most famous face of an otherwise largely faceless protest movement. As one of the leaders of the Civil Human Rights Front, he co-organized the big marches that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets this summer. He himself advocates nonviolent resistance and sees the radicalization of the movement skeptical. But he refuses, like most civil rights activists, to openly criticize the radicals.

15 floors, 40 residential units, 1200 possible voices

More than four out of seven million Hong Kong citizens have registered for the local election, more than ever before. The district councils are the only truly democratically elected authorities in Hong Kong. Only half of the city's parliament is directly elected by the people, and the body that elects the head of government is dominated by peer-to-peer associations. Some of the seats on both boards fall to the district councils, so the choice is so important for both sides.

"We have to do everything that everyone really wants to vote for," says Jimmy Sham. Then he assembles the team with which he undertakes the "Sau Chuen House", a social building built in the British colonial era, 15 floors of 40 residential units each. Then he hobbles off, with a woman with the emblem of his party in the wake, and a second colleague who holds the front door campaign for the social media.

For almost three hours he knocks on every single door: "Nei hou, hello, we're off the list. 2. May I give you a booklet?" Almost all doors open, almost all recognize Sham immediately, but for more than a few words the time is not enough. 600 flats: With an average of two adults per unit, that would be 1200 possible votes. "Democracy is laborious," sighs Sham's companion, wearing the party emblem.

Bernhard Zand / DER SPIEGEL

Jimmy Sham with potential voter

Junius Ho's campaign runs a little differently. He also made public appointments at the beginning, as on November 6, when he was attacked by the stabber. But unlike Sham, Ho sits in the city council and uses the prominence that bestows him in the media and social networks. In addition, Ho's family is well connected in the Tuen Mun district and he is a partner in a law firm active in both Hong Kong and mainland China. He is wealthy and belongs to the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

"We all know him well here," says Ms. Lau, 43, a community worker who works in the center of Tuen Mun and names her surname only. "He's very generous, he often comes here on public holidays and distributes gifts, and most of us will vote for him."

She knows, she says, that Ho is a controversial figure. On July 21, a camera had filmed shaking hands with a group of men who had brutally beaten up protesters and bystanders. When, shortly thereafter, his election office was attacked and the tombs of his parents were devastated, he launched a death threat against a pro-Democrat deputy, another parliamentarian she covered with sexist verbal abuse. Hog's office did not answer interview requests from Der Spiegel.

So be it just among the people and in politics, says the church servant Lau. "Everyone has their good and bad sides."