"Hong Kong has so far greeted the upcoming legislative council elections with a mixture of indifference and confusion," wrote South China Morning Post political editor Chris Yeung.

"Halfway through the final one-month campaign period, there has been precious little zeal or sparkle over the polls," he wrote over the weekend.

"They are finding it difficult to equate a `fair, open and clean' election and a credible legislature with the bread-and-butter problems they face in a worsening economy,".

Candidates campaigned on Sunday as the government staged colourful lion dances, bus parades and a promotional March to urge people to vote on May 24. It will be the first legislative election since Britain returned Hong Kong, a staunchly capitalist outpost of 6.6 million residents, to communist China lastJuly, ending 156 years of colonial rule.

About 2.8 million eligible voters will elect 60 deputies to a two-year term in the legislature. They will replace the deputies Beijing appointed after the handover.

The election atmosphere has been largely one of apathy, with few campaign banners or posters in the streets and passers-by hardly bothering to listen to campaigning candidates.

Opinion polls show most residents deeply concerned by rising unemployment and the sharp economic slowdown.

Over the past six months, retailers, restaurants, property agents, stock brokerages and finance houses -- including a major Asian investment bank -- have laid off thousands of workers or been forced to close.

About 100 angry investors marched to the government headquarters on Sunday to urge better monitoring by authorities of securities firms, several of which have collapsed in recent months.

Candidates have complained about a lack of voter interest as they campaign for support. "There's no strong urge for people totake part in the elections," pro-Beijing candidate Gary Cheng told the South China Morning Post.

"During our home visits, some people were asking why they should bother to vote now that they don't even have rice-bowls (jobs)," he said.

The official jobless rate jumped to 3.5 per cent in the first quarter of 1998, a three-and-a-half year high, as the regional financial crisis began to pinch Hong Kong.

Finance secretary Donald Tsang has warned that the rate could increase, and trade unionists have charged the official figures understated the problem. The slump has hit everyone from bankers to shop assistants.Last week one of Hong Kong's oldest department store chains, Wing On Co International Ltd, laid off 270 staff, and finance house Forluxe Securities closed, leaving hundreds of investors anxious about their funds.