Beijing sidelined Hong Kong's most prominent democrat last year when it sacked the partly-elected assembly at the stroke of midnight on July 1st, even before the last British governor had sailed off into the night on the royal yacht, Britannia.
Yesterday, however, Mr Martin Lee, who heads the Democratic Party and is a thorn in the side of the Chinese government, made a big comeback in the first elections to be held under Beijing sovereignty.
The slender, ascetic lawyer and his party colleagues won nine of the 20 directly-elected seats in the 60-member council, with just under half the popular vote.
Another six seats were won by pro-democracy allies, according to Ms Mary Stuart Worden, an executive officer of the Democratic Party.
Pro-Beijing members will dominate the assembly, having won most of the remaining 40 seats, 30 of which were filled by business and corporate groups and 10 by an 800-member election committee, but even here five democrats emerged to give the pro-democracy bloc 20 seats, or a third of the total legislature.
The vote was a phenomenal affirmation of the democratic process, Mr Lee said last night.
Hong Kong people defied terrible weather conditions and terrible election laws and conventional wisdom to make their democratic aspirations come true.
The result is hardly a surprise. Mr Lee (59), who in 1989 spearheaded the mass demonstrations in Hong Kong against the crushing of pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, is a popular hero in the territory.
The vote, however, lays to rest the suspicion that Hong Kong people would temper their pro-democracy leanings to accommodate Beijing and gives renewed impetus to the quest for full democracy in the former British colony and - more worrying for Beijing - in mainland China.
"It is a small step forward for my country, China, towards democracy," Mr Lee said.
The new legislature, as was the case under British rule, will have little real power and cannot initiate legislation, but it will give the democrats a platform to act as a vociferous opposition.
The first test of the tolerance of the Beijing government for the pro-democracy challenge will come on June 4th, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown which has been commemorated every year with huge candlelit commemorations in Hong Kong's Victoria Park.
People's Liberation Army soldiers quartered in Hong Kong have not interfered in the internal affairs of the territory, and democrats are still free to demonstrate, despite dire predictions from Mr Lee, before the handover, of the imminent curtailment of civil liberties.
The Democratic Party leader also said he intended to use his position to campaign for universal suffrage in two years.
Beijing has promised that the number of directly-elected seats will increase to 24 in the 2000 election and 30 in the 2004 ballot and that in 2008, electors can decide whether or not to adopt universal suffrage.
A record number of voters defied a tropical downpour to vote on Sunday. Of 1.49 million registered voters 53 per cent cast their ballots, compared to 35.8 per cent in the final election under British rule in 1995.