Chair Law King-shing, DAB NWSC 5 / 30 | DAB 8 / 30 | |
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Vice-Chair Chow Yick-hay, Independent Seats 30 councillorsconsisting of29 elected and1 ex officio members | ||
Kwai Tsing District Council (Chinese: 葵青區議會) is the district council for the Kwai Tsing District in Hong Kong, being one of the 18 district councils in Hong Kong. It currently consists of 30 members of which 29 are directly elected from the 29 constituencies of the district, one ex-officio member who is the Tsing Yi rural committee chairman. The latest election was held on 22 November 2015.
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History
The Kwai Tsing District Council was originally part of the Tsuen Wan District Board until 1985, when a separate Kwai Chung and Tsing Yi District Board was established due to the rapid expansion of population. It was renamed into today's Kwai Tsing District Council in 1988, making it the second youngest existing district council after Yau Tsim Mong District Council. The District Board was partly elected with the ex-officio Regional Council members and Tsing Yi Rural Committee chairman, as well as members appointed by the Governor until 1994 when last Governor Chris Patten refrained from appointing any member.
The Kwai Tsing District Board became Kwai Tsing Provisional District Board after the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was established in 1997 with the appointment system being reintroduced by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. The current Kwai Tsing District Council was established on 1 January 2000 after the first District Council election in 1999. The appointed seats were abolished in 2011 after the modified constitutional reform proposal was passed by the Legislative Council in 2010.
The Kwai Tsing District Council had been a stronghold of the pro-democracy camp since the 1980s until 2015. Prominent pro-democracy politicians Lee Wing-tat, Sin Chung-kai and Leung Yiu-chung were among the first members of the council, in which Lee and Sin had served as council chairmen.
The Democratic Party with the Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre (NWSC), which had the strong presence in Shek Yam and Kwai Chung, had comfortable control of the council since the 1980s until the late 2000s. In the 2007 election when the pan-democrats suffered a territory-wide devastating loss which saw the pro-Beijing camp gained majority of the council, with the help of the reintroduction of appointment system, where the Chief Executive would appoint pro-government councillors.
In the 2015 election, the Democrats lost its largest party status to the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) in which the Democrats' seats were down to 4 by losing half of their seats and the DAB doubled their seats from 4 to 8, despite the appointment system was cancelled in the 2015 election.
Political control
Since 1985 political control of the council has been held by the following parties:
Political makeup
Elections are held every four years.
Chairs
Since 1985, the chairman is elected by all the members of the board: