Last month’s landslide victory for the city’s pro-democracy camp was a clarion call for change after six months of huge and increasingly violent protests against the government of Beijing-backed leader Carrie Lam.

The city’s district councils are the only elections in which Hong Kongers can vote for every seat – and they did so in record numbers this year.

Pro-democracy candidates won 392 of 452 races, seizing all but one of the city’s 18 districts during a poll that was widely seen as a barometer of seething public anger towards Beijing’s rule.

Yet many of those elected openly admit they are political newcomers who would never would have dreamed of running had Beijing and Lam not spent months digging in against the protests.