[3][4] Demosisto's Nathan Law, a 23-year-old Occupy student leader became the youngest candidate to be elected in history along with his allies Lau Siu-lai and Eddie Chu.

[3] As a result, four pan-democrats lost their seats, namely, Neo Democrats' Gary Fan, as well as three veterans, Lee Cheuk-yan and Cyd Ho of the Labour Party and Frederick Fung of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood.

The election comes after the rejection of constitutional reform proposals of the Leung Chun-ying administration in mid-2015 meant the electoral method for the Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2016 was unchanged.

In response, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying urged the voters to "punish" the opposition democratic candidates by voting them out in the upcoming legislative election.

After the election, Edward Leung claimed localism had become the third most important power grouping in Hong Kong politics alongside the pan-democracy and pro-Beijing camps.

[11] On 10 April 2016, six localist groups which emerged after the 2014 Umbrella Revolution, Youngspiration, Kowloon East Community, Tin Shui Wai New Force, Cheung Sha Wan Community Establishment Power, Tsz Wan Shan Constructive Power and Tuen Mun Community, formed an electoral alliance under the name "ALLinHK" planned to field candidates in four of the five geographical constituencies with the agenda to put forward a referendum on Hong Kong's self-determination, while Hong Kong Indigenous and another new pro-independence Hong Kong National Party also stated that they would run in the upcoming election.

Tai's plan hit its setback when the Neo Democrats decided not to support the proposed coordinating mechanism for the District Council (Second) super seats in May.

Professor Lau Siu-kai, former head of the Hong Kong government's think tank, the Central Policy Unit, worried that more people might vote for pan-democracy camp in September's election.

The rare move amid speculation that Li was removed over an investigation into Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's receipt of HK$50 million from Australian firm UGL.

After the end of the nomination period, six localist candidates received emails from the EAC which said their nominations were "invalidated", which included Chan Ho-tin, Democratic Progressive Party's Yeung Ke-cheong, Nationalist Hong Kong's Nakade Hitsujiko, Conservative Party's Alice Lai Yee-man, Hong Kong Indigenous' Edward Leung and independent Chan Kwok-keung, although many of them had signed the additional confirmation form; all except Yeung had signed the declaration statement in the nomination form saying they would "uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong SAR" as required by the Legislative Council Ordinance.

Leung Yiu-chung of the Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre (NWSC) who ran in the territory-wide District Council (Second) "super seat" also had joint-promotional leaflets with Lau Siu-lai of Democracy Groundwork in Kowloon West.

Liberal Party honorary chairman James Tien who was running in the New Territories East and "middle-of-the-road" politician Ricky Wong Wai-kay who aimed at the last seat in Hong Kong Island also went out of their constituencies and campaigned for each other.

James Tien also campaigned for the "middle-of-the-road" party Third Side's Tik Chi-yuen who aimed at the last seat in Kowloon West against Yau Wai-ching of the localist group Youngspiration.

[56] On 15 August, it was reported that volunteers and staff from Kowloon West New Dynamic chaired by pro-Beijing politician Priscilla Leung helped Tik arrange a meet-the-public event in Sham Shui Po.

[60] Issues including Hong Kong independence, filibustering, universal retirement protection scheme, standard working hours and Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's administration and re-election took central stage at the election forums.

On 25 August, Liberal Party's Ken Chow Wing-kan who ran for New Territories West announced he would stop his electioneering at the Cable TV election forum for fear of "people close to him paying a heavy price".

[64] On 2 September less than 48 hours before the election day and after the release of the large-scale opinion poll conducted by University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme (HKUPOP) and sponsored by pro-democracy group Power for Democracy, five pro-democrat candidates, independents Paul Zimmerman and Chui Chi-kin in Hong Kong Island, Labour Party's Suzanne Wu in Kowloon East and Civic Party's Sumly Chan and Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood's (ADPL) Kalvin Ho in District Council (Second), suspended their campaigns in the hope of deflecting support to fellow pan-democrats who were seen as standing a better chance.

[68] the anti-establishment forces, including the pan-democrats and the localists, won 29 out of 70 seats; managed to retain the majority in the geographical constituencies to block the pro-Beijing camp's attempt to amend the rule of procedures to curb radicals' filibustering and the opposition's crucial one-thirds minority to maintain the veto power on government's constitutional reform proposal.

The localists, six backers of self-determination for Hong Kong, including Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung from the post-Occupy group Youngspiration, Occupy student leader Nathan Law of the Demosisto, who became the youngest ever candidate to be elected, Polytechnic University lecturer Lau Siu-lai, Eddie Chu, were returned in the geographical constituencies, securing of nearly 20 per cent of the vote share.

The pan-democrats saw their big names losing, including Labour Party's Lee Cheuk-yan and Cyd Ho and Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood's (ADPL) Frederick Fung.

The Liberal Party came second by retaining the four functional constituency despite Joseph Chan's unsuccessful challenge against BPA's Jeffrey Lam in Commercial (First) and Dominic Lee's failed bid in New Territories East.

Another pro-Beijing candidate supported by the Liaison Office, independent lawyer Junius Ho, also won the last seat in New Territories West against Lee Cheuk-yan.

[71] The nominations received and validated by the Electoral Affairs Commission listed as following:[72] Voting system: Party-list proportional representation with largest remainder method and Hare quota.

[75] Benny Tai's tactical voting plan ThunderGo was also blamed for causing the losses of the veteran pan-democrats, including Labour Party's Lee Cheuk-yan, as well as Civic Passion's Wong Yeung-tat, in whom the plan advise to drop to make way for League of Social Democrats' Wong Ho-ming and People Power's Tam Tak-chi in New Territories West and Kowloon East respectively.

[76] After the election, nonpartisan Eddie Chu, who was widely known for taking on the Heung Yee Kuk over its land rights, complained of "imminent" death threats against him and his family.

Chu's campaign drew public attention to the long-time allegations of collusion between the government, business, landlords and triads behind the Wang Chau housing project, which made the government to scale down the housing project from 17,000 flats to only 4,000 due to the pressure from the powerful rural leader Tsang Shu-wo who owned the brownfield land in Wang Chau.