A coalition of the United Democrats and the Meeting Point, together with other smaller parties, groups and independents in the pro-democracy camp had a landslide victory, getting 16 of the 18 geographical constituency seats.

After the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in December 1984 stated the sovereignty of Hong Kong would be transferred from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China, the pace of the democratisation towards a government of high autonomy towards 1997 became a major political debate.

The Hong Kong government's assumed the two-seat constituencies would produce a mixture of liberal, rural conservative and business representatives as well as some members of the "United Front" organisations which supported by Beijing, as the voters would cast their ballots for prominent individuals rather than a "party" label.

After the crackdown, the liberal leaders, Martin Lee and Szeto Wah had been labelled as "subversives" by the Beijing government and expelled form the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee.

[1] The conservative Liberal Democratic Federation of Hong Kong, newly founded in 1990 mainly by business and professional groups favouring collaboration with Beijing, polled only 5.1% of the vote.

In Island East, Cheng Kai-nam who had the support of a pro-Beijing group, Hong Kong Citizen Forum, polled 29,902 against the United Democrats' leader Martin Lee, who received 76,831 votes.