[1] After the government's constitutional reform package was passed in 2010, five new seats in the Legislative Council would be created in which the candidates would be nominated by all District Councillors.

Albert Ho and Frederick Fung were able to retain their seats, but other pan-democrat heavyweights who tried to gain seats in the District Councils in order to run in the new constituency in next year's Legislative Council election, including Tanya Chan, Ronny Tong and Lee Cheuk-yan, lost their bids to relatively unknown local councillors.

On 29 December 2007, the NPCSC (China's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress) announced that the Chief Executive and all members of Legislative Council may be selected by universal suffrage in 2017 and 2020 respectively.

While the Civic Party and the League of Social Democrats councilors resigned from Legislative Council in order to launch a de facto referendum against the package and urging for real universal suffrage, their ally, the Democratic Party went for negotiation with the mainland officials and carried out a revised proposal.

A new radical party, People Power led by Wong Yuk-man and Albert Chan was announced to punish those who betrayal the cause of democracy.

Just one month before the election in October 2011, a leaked document revealed that Jimmy Lai, media mogul of Apple Daily has long been donating money to many supporters of democracy groups.

[4] The Wall Street Journal saw this as part of "a fresh campaign to accuse pro-democracy politicians of being stooges of foreign powers".

[7] Right of abode for foreign domestic workers in HK became an election issue as the Civic Party was closely identified with the legal advisers who represented one such Filipina.

In defence, Chief Secretary Stephen Lam said that the matter was "investigated thoroughly five years ago", and that "no evidence of vote rigging were found".

[13] Democratic Party candidate, Winfield Chong, who lost by 24 votes, said six buildings in the Sai Wan constituency used by approximately 120 voters to register were either being demolished or had been demolished; Yeung Sui-yin, who lost the Belcher seat by 33 votes, filed a complaint with the police, also alleging ballot rigging.

[12][13] ADPL candidate Lam Kin-man, who lost King's Park constituency by two votes, took up his complaint with the ICAC.

[14] Following up on the allegations, the ICAC mounted "Operation Wave Spray", according to which 22 suspects were found to have "provided false information about their residential addresses to election officers"; six of them were charged.