The Sham Shui Po District Council is the district council for the

Sham Shui Po District Sham Shui Po District is one of 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is the poorest district in Hong Kong, with a predominantly working-class population of 405,869 in 2016 and the lowest median household income of all districts. Sham Shui Po has long ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

. It is one of 18 such councils. The Sham Shui Po District Council currently consists of 25 members, of which the district is divided into 25 constituencies, electing a total of 25 members. The last election was held on 24 November 2019.

History

The Sham Shui Po District Council was established on 22 October 1981 under the name of the Sham Shui Po District Board as the result of the colonial

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Murray MacLehose Crawford Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch, (; 16 October 1917 – 27 May 2000), was a British politician, diplomat and the 25th Governor of Hong Kong, from 1971 to 1982. He was the longest-serving governor of the colony, with fou ...

's District Administration Scheme reform. The District Board was partly elected with the ''ex-officio''

Urban Council The Urban Council (UrbCo) was a municipal council in Hong Kong responsible for municipal services on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon (including New Kowloon). These services were provided by the council's executive arm, the Urban Servic ...

members, as well as members appointed by the Governor until 1994 when last Governor

Chris Patten Christopher Francis Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes, (; born 12 May 1944) is a British politician who was the 28th and last Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997 and Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1992. He was made a life ...

refrained from appointing any member. The Sham Shui Po District Board became Sham Shui Po Provisional District Board after the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was established in 1997 with the appointment system being reintroduced by

Chief Executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Tung Chee-hwa Tung Chee-hwa (; born 7 July 1937) is a Hong Kong businessman and politician who served as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong between 1997 and 2005, upon the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July. He is currently a vice-chairman of the Chi ...

. The current Sham Shui Po District Council was established on 1 January 2000 after the first District Council election in 1999. The council has become fully elected when the appointed seats were abolished in 2011 after the modified constitutional reform proposal was passed by the Legislative Council in 2010. Partly because of the large presence of the low-income group in Sham Shui Po, the area has bred many pro-grassroots politicians. Social activists from the grassroots political groups

Hong Kong People's Council on Public Housing Policy The Hong Kong People's Council on Public Housing Policy (; HKPCHP), formerly called the Hong Kong People's Council on Public Housing Policy (), was a Hong Kong pressure group established in 1978 and was prominent in the 1970s and 80s. It was set ...

and the Sham Shui Po Residents Livelihood Concern Group had their roots in the district, which later formed the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL), one of the earlier

pro-democracy Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a full ...

political groups in the 1980s. With the strong presence of the ADPL in the district, the ADPL gained majority of the council from 1994 to 1997 and took control of the council from 2000 to 2007 with its pro-democracy allies. It also returned its longtime chairman Frederick Fung in the Kowloon West constituency, in which Sham Shui Po is the biggest area, to the Legislative Council from 1991 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2012. However, Hong Kong's largest pro-government and pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), gained a foothold in Sham Shui Po in recent years with large amount of resources. In the 2007 District Council election, the pan-democrats lost control of the council for the first time, in which the seats commanded by pro-democracy and pro-Beijing forces were split even with the help of the government-appointed seats. The ADPL suffered further loss in the 2011 District Council election, losing the control of the council to the pro-Beijing camp. In the 2015 District Council election, the district's first election after Umbrella Revolution, the pan-democrats regained almost half of the seats in the district council with 11 seats in their possession. as composed to pro-Beijing camp's 12 seats, despite the downfall of Frederick Fung in his Lai Kok constituency, being defeated by a DAB new face Chan Wing-yan. Amid the massive pro-democracy protests, the pro-democrats scored a historic landslide victory by taking 22 of the 25 seats in the 2019 District Council election. The ADPL retained the status of the largest party, securing 11 seats in total.

Political control

Since 1982 political control of the council has been held by the following parties:

Political makeup

Current Map of Sham Shui Po District Council

Elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

are held every four years.

District result maps

File:1994DBelectionmapf.svg, 1994 File:1999DCelectionmapf.svg, 1999 File:2003DCelectionmapf.svg, 2003 File:2007DCelectionmapf.svg, 2007 File:2011DCelectionmapf.svg, 2011 File:Sham Shui Po District Council 2015.svg, 2015 File:Sham Shui Po District Council (2019).svg, 2019

Members represented

Starting from 1 January 2020:

Leadership

Chairs

Since 1985, the chairman is elected by all the members of the board:

Vice Chairs

Notes

References

External links

Shan Shui Po at the Hong Kong Government District Councils website
{{coord, 22.3319, 114.1635, display=title Districts of Hong Kong Sham Shui Po District