A small election in Hong Kong does not attract much interest, and the vote on December 10 has been ignored by the Guardian and most other media. Yes, we all said in 1997 after the handover that we must "never forget Hong Kong", but times have moved on. Yet the result of this contest has sent a clear message to Beijing that Hong Kongers continue to want more democracy, and once again it has given the lie to the familiar Chinese claim that the people of this territory are only interested in "prosperity and stability", or more crudely as the British colonial government used to put it, in "just making money". It was, on the face of it, a rather meaningless exercise: only about 200,000 of Hong Kong's population were eligible to vote in the so-called "functional constituencies" which represent business and professional groups: only 27% actually did so. They were choosing their representatives for the 800-strong Election Committee, which in turn will choose, in March 2007, the next chief executive (CE) of the territory. In other words, a procedure designed by the Chinese in the Basic Law which governs Hong Kong to give the appearance of democracy while getting the results they desire. Half the members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo) are also chosen (in separate elections) by the Functional Constituencies which up till now have always been dominated by conservative/pro-China/fat-cat opinion. This leads to results which are as cynical as they are absurd: the "real estate" sector gives seats to Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong's biggest tycoon, and Stanley Ho, Macao's casino king, who already wield immense power behind the scenes. The vague hint in the basic law that Hong Kong would move closer to direct elections, both of the LegCo and of the CE, next year, was nullified by Beijing two years ago: the most people hope for now is some improvement in 2012. However, Sunday's result sprung an unexpected surprise which means that the vote for CE next March will for the first time since the 1997 handover be contested rather than a simple coronation of Beijing's man (in this case the current CE Donald Tsang). For the pro-democracy front (the "pan-democrats") won 114 out of the 137 seats they were contesting: this will almost certainly give them the minimum 100 members of the Election Committee needed to nominate a challenger to Tsang: the civic party legislator Alan Leong Kah-kit. The democrats made a clean sweep of all the seats in seven of the functional constituencies, including higher education and law - critical sectors for the maintenance of Hong Kong's autonomy. No one expects Leong to win but his candidacy will politicise the CE contest and increase the pressure on Tsang to try to persuade Beijing to acknowledge Hong Kong's aspirations for real democracy (ie progress towards a directly elected legislature and CE). Tsang is an improvement on his feeble predecessor Tung Chee-hwa but needs to be prodded out of complacency. (Last month he even tried to pretend that Hong Kong's appalling pollution was not a serious problem). Beijing's instinctive reaction so far has been to back away from the idea, at times suggesting that pro-democracy equals subversive intent, instead of allowing Hong Kong to serve as a democratic pacemaker. If the policy of "one country, two systems" means anything, why there is a problem with the Hong Kong's political system being fully democratic? At this point in the argument, someone is bound to object that the British ruled Hong Kong for more than 100 years without letting its people have a democratic voice. Absolutely true, and I can remember how senior British officials in the early 1980s scoffed at the unofficial "pressure groups" which would develop into the pro-democracy movement - and set the special branch to spy on them. Chris Patten's attempt as last Hong Kong governor to speed up democratic change was also weakened by this charge. Yet why should Hong Kong be condemned to inaction now because of colonial omissions in the past? Readers so far will perhaps understand why news desks get baffled by the complexity of the Hong Kong electoral system, even though we must "never forget Hong Kong". But next year's CE election, 10 years after the handover, will be a good time to remember Hong Kong again for more than its container ports, shopping malls and the Peak Tram.