HONG KONG — To reach Mui Wo, a small town on Lantau Island, you take a ferry from central Hong Kong, and after a 30-minute ride arrive at a small square with a car park and bus stops blackened by fumes. But just a minute’s walk away is a large, sandy beach overlooked by a tall mountain. As you make your way down the bicycle path, you might have to contend with feral cows and water buffaloes.

Bucolic Mui Wo is far from the chaos that has gripped the streets of urban Hong Kong for half a year, and yet here, too, everything feels forever changed. There are no demonstrations, riot police or tear gas. But the protests have left their mark on the village’s shaded paths, tranquil beaches and barbecue pits. In Mui Wo, as throughout the territory, entrenched political ways have bred resentment and frustration, and people now want more accountability .

Elections for Hong Kong’s 18 district councils are scheduled for Sunday — the first elections since mass protests began in June and the only elections in the territory that are entirely decided by direct suffrage . As you go up the ladder of power, direct representation diminishes: Only 40 of the Legislative Council’s 70 members are elected through universal suffrage; the rest are selected by various interest groups. Hong Kong’s leader, the chief executive, is chosen by an Election Committee of 1,200 people.

As of Friday afternoon, at least, the district council elections were still expected to take place. There had been doubts about that, especially given the extraordinarily violent confrontations between protesters and police in recent days — with their staggering number of tear gas canisters and Molotov cocktails, rubber bullets and live rounds, and even some arrows. Last week , the police attacked one university campus; after protesters occupied another campus, the police besieged it, trying to choke off their supplies and coerce them into submitting to arrest.