Kwun Tong District Council

Kwun Tong District Council 觀塘區議會
Type
Type	Hong Kong District Council of the Kwun Tong District
History
Founded	2 April 1981 (1981-04-02) (District Board) 1 July 1997 (1997-07-01) (Provisional) 1 January 2000 (2000-01-01) (District Council)
Leadership
Chair	Bunny Chan, Independent
Vice-Chair	Hung Kam-in, DAB
Structure
Seats	37 councillors consisting of 37 elected members
DAB	10 / 37
Democratic	3 / 37
FTU	2 / 37
Civic	1 / 37
KEC	1 / 37
FPHE	1 / 37
Independent	19 / 37
Elections
Voting system	First past the post
Last election	22 November 2015
Meeting place
Unit 05-07, 20/F Millennium City 6, Kwun Tong Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon
Website
www.districtcouncils.gov.hk/kt/

Kwun Tong District Council (Chinese: 觀塘區議會) is the district council for the Kwun Tong District in Hong Kong. It is one of 18 district council. Kwun Tong District currently consists of 37 members, of which the district is divided into 37 constituencies, electing a total of 37 members. The council was created in April 1981 under the District Board Ordinance 1981. The latest election was held on 22 November 2015.

History

The Kwun Tong District Council was established on 2 April 1981 under the name of the Kwun Tong District Board as the result of the colonial Governor Murray MacLehose's District Administration Scheme reform. The District Board was partly elected with the ex-officio Urban Council members, as well as members appointed by the Governor until 1994 when last Governor Chris Patten refrained from appointing any member.

The Kwun Tong District Board became Kwun Tong 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 Kwun Tong 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.

The Kwun Tong District Council is one of the largest District Councils in Hong Kong. Due to its large population, the political parties' influence was countered by the conservative independent community leaders. Because of the large presence of lower-income groups and industrial character, the Kwun Tong District Council has also been a stronghold for the pro-Beijing grassroots political groups, including the Kwun Tong Residents Association headed by Hau Shui-pui, council chairman from 1997 to 2003, and Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and its Legislative Councillor Chan Kam-lam. It also the voter base of pro-democracy politicians Szeto Wah of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union (PTU) and Fred Li of the Meeting Point who was first elected to the District Board in the 1985 election and got directly elected to the Legislative Council with Szeto through the district in 1991.

The pro-democracy camp first achieved more than half of the elected seats and took control of the board in the 1994 election. The pro-democracy majority was offset by the appointed members after 1997. In the tide of democracy caused by the 2003 July 1 march, the pro-democrats again achieved majority of the elected seats but was countered by the appointed seats.^[1] The pro-democracy influence shrank significantly after 2003, with the Democratic Party dropped their seats from nine seats in the 2003 election to three in their territory-wide defeat in 2007 and have not yet been able to recover from it.

Political control

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

Political makeup

Elections are held every four years.

District result maps

• 
  1994 results map
• 
  1999 results map
• 
  2003 results map
• 
  2007 results map
• 
  2011 results map
• 
  2015 results map

Members represented

Leadership

References