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By Clare Baldwin and Lizzie Ko HONG KONG (Reuters) - A campus election at a top Hong Kong university degenerated into an acrimonious campaign against mainland Chinese candidates, highlighting simmering tensions two months after pro-democracy protests led by local students paralysed parts of the city. Mainland students say they have always felt a distance from their local peers, but recent events in the Chinese-controlled city have fueled a burgeoning Hong Kong identity among many younger residents, alongside frustration and anger at Beijing. "To brainwashed Commie-loving Mainlanders, we despise you!", read a flyer posted on the University of Hong Kong's (HKU) "Democracy Wall", underscoring the sharpening divide. The so-called "Umbrella Movement" protests late last year, calling for full democracy in Hong Kong, posed the greatest challenge to China's authority since the crushing of a pro-democracy movement in Beijing in 1989.More...