Despite the relatively high turnout and a clear victory for the pro-establishment camp, last Sunday's district council elections appeared pretty lacklustre on the surface.
But, looking deeper at the results, the signs are not good for our pro-democracy politicians. They obviously felt the heat. And, though some found an easy scapegoat in the central government's liaison office, they failed to substantiate their claims. Failing to learn from this defeat will lead them right into another one next September.
Right from the beginning, most pro-democracy parties paid very little respect to the work of the district councils and, as a result, very little attention to the elections. Even the Democratic Party sees its district councillors only as 'pillars' to support its lawmakers in their elections.
The rest regard district councillors as public 'plumbers' and the election as a platform to express their pet political statements and rehearse mobilisation for Legislative Council elections.
In contrast, most pro-establishment parties and politicians are deadly serious about community work and they pursued district council seats with dogged determination. It was a battle between professionals and amateurs. If the pan-democrats choose to ignore the writing on the wall, they'll pay the price.
Some blamed their defeat on the sudden surge of pro-establishment supporters turning up on polling day. Analysts from the pro-democracy camp suggested that the support of these new voters, usually people aged above 50, was being manipulated by the liaison office. But voter registration is an open field and is encouraged by the government. How could these pan-democrats accuse others of foul play while they themselves were being lazy and sloppy?
The pan-democrats made a fatal strategic mistake by narrowing their front, leaving over 70 seats uncontested, a 50 per cent increase over the last election. It is true that this strategy might have restricted their loss - they won 13 seats fewer than at the last election, or about 4 per cent of the total - but it freed up more of their opponents' resources to be used against them in those seats that were being contested, making the fight a lot harder.