The few days immediately after an election are always dangerous for political analysis. Pundits, and the people that read their commentaries, try to use individual victories or defeats in order to predict long-term trends, or to support conclusions they already had. We have already started to see commentary from last Sunday's elections. Writers say that its results "prove" that Hong Kong's population is still politically polarized. It is not yet clear that the results of Sunday's elections support that conclusion. Turnout on Sunday did break records, with a respectable 47 percent of those eligible taking part in the elections. But we must keep this in context. The elections in 2011 had a turnout of 41.5 percent, meaning that this Sunday's elections had a non-trivial, but not necessarily large, increase in turnout. Nor is it clear what caused this increase: Commentators are assuming it was the illegal "Occupy Central" movement, but it could also have been local scandals, or even just Sunday's nice weather.

Even if the "Occupy" movement encouraged people to go to the polls, it is not yet clear whether it had any effect on how they decided to vote. Several experienced pro-establishment candidates lost to newcomers, but so did several experienced "pan-democratic" candidates. Some "umbrella soldiers" saw success in their elections - perhaps more than was expected - but they still won only eight of the 50 seats they contested. Many incumbents, on both sides, held onto their seats, and 66 seats were uncontested.

Both political camps were guilty of hoping that the higher turnout would help them. The pro-establishment camp hoped that voters would reject "pan-democrats" due to the disruption of the "Occupy" movement, while "pan-democrats" hoped that they would see success from a more galvanized youth vote.

In the end, neither the pro-establishment nor the "pan-democratic" camps seem to have been right. The "Occupy" movement has not radicalized Hong Kong's population to reject the establishment, nor has it engendered significant resentment against the "pan-democrats". If anything, Hong Kong voters in Sunday's elections seemed to remain largely centrist, voting out incumbents that they felt had failed in their duties as district councilors, and voting in newcomers who promised to do more for their community - regardless of political orientation.

The high turnout also disproves another prediction made since "Occupy" or, more accurately, since the failure of the electoral reform package - that Hong Kong's population would lose faith in the political process, and fall into apathy. Forty-seven percent is a reasonable turnout for local elections to an advisory body; compare it to the US midterm elections in 2014, where only 35 percent of voters participated in elections for politicians with actual legislative power.

Those who follow politics often try to identify single causes in what are really very complex relationships. Someone may have voted an experienced pro-establishment candidate out of office because he or she was galvanized by the "Occupy" movement, or he or she may have felt that the incumbent was spending too little time looking after the community. An incumbent "pan-democrat" may have lost because voters were angry about political demonstrations, or it may be because a newer candidate ran a campaign that better connected with local residents.

The fact that we cannot easily draw long-term conclusions from Sunday's elections may, ironically, be a useful conclusion. Some elections have obvious messages: These are the sweeping changes of power that show a real shift in public opinion. But not every election has to be a "wave" election. It may be that recent political developments have affected the electorate and its views - but a single election may not be the piece of evidence to support that. Investing great significance in the usual churn of candidates may be more of a hindrance to analysis than a help.

What we can probably learn from Sunday's election is that Hong Kong people, when given the chance, remain largely centrist. Hong Kong voters could have radically changed the balance of power in the city's district councils, either by voting out the establishment en masse, or rejecting all "pan-democratic" candidates. Neither of these occurred. Hong Kong people are also reasonably politically engaged, even on local issues. They are not politically apathetic.

Thus, those worried that Hong Kong's voters can be manipulated by the establishment may be as wrong as those who worry that they can be radicalized by political demonstrations. Or, at least, we can say Sunday's elections do not strongly support either scenario. Disagreement does not necessarily mean polarization, and losses by some incumbents do not necessarily mean that voters want "new blood." Only with time can we draw some real conclusions about what Hong Kong's vibrant and complex population really wants.

The author is a researcher working for the Global Institute for Tomorrow, a Hong Kong-based think tank. The views expressed are his own.

(HK Edition 11/25/2015 page9)