Yuen Long District Council

Yuen Long District Council 元朗區議會
Type
Type	Hong Kong District Council of the Yuen Long District
History
Founded	1 April 1981 (1981-04-01) (District Board) 1 July 1997 (1997-07-01) (Provisional) 1 January 2000 (2000-01-01) (District Council)
Leadership
Chair	Sham Ho-kit, Independent
Vice-Chair	Wong Wai-shun, NPP
Structure
Seats	41 councillors consisting of 35 elected and 6 ex officio members
DAB	6 / 41
FTU	4 / 41
NPP	2 / 41
Democratic	2 / 41
DA	1 / 41
NTAS	1 / 41
Roundtable	1 / 41
Independent	23 / 41
Elections
Voting system	First past the post
Last election	22 November 2015
Meeting place
13/F., Yuen Long Government Offices, No.2, Kiu Lok Square, Yuen Long, New Territories
Website
www.districtcouncils.gov.hk/yl/

Yuen Long District Council (Chinese: 元朗區議會) is the district council for the Yuen Long District in Hong Kong. It is one of 18 district councils. Yuen Long District currently consists of 41 members, of which the district is divided into 35 constituencies, electing a total of 35 with 6 ex officio members who are the Shap Pat Heung, San Tin, Ha Tsuen, Kam Tin, Ping Shan and Pat Heung rural committee chairmen. The latest election was held on 22 November 2015.

History

The Yuen Long District Council was established on 1 April 1981 under the name of the Yuen Long 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 Regional Council members and chairmen of six Rural Committees, Shap Pat Heung, San Tin, Ha Tsuen, Kam Tin, Ping Shan and Pat Heung, as well as members appointed by the Governor until 1994 when last Governor Chris Patten refrained from appointing any member.

The Yuen Long District Board became Yuen Long 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 Yuen Long District Council was established on 1 January 2000 after the first District Council election in 1999. The appointed seats were abolished in 2015 after the modified constitutional reform proposal was passed by the Legislative Council in 2010.

The Yuen Long District Council is one of the fastest growing council due to the development of the new towns of Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai, and has become the largest council of the territory. It is tightly dominated by the rural forces due to its vast rural areas and the ex-officio rural committee representatives. The chairmanship of the council has been taken by rural or rural-related councillors, such as Tai Kuen, chairman from 1985 to 1999, was a rural strongman; Tang Siu-tong, chairman from 2000 to 2007, was a rural leader which represented the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance and was elected to the Legislative Council in 200 on the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) ticket; Leung Che-cheung, chairman from 2008 to 2015, was a member of the DAB and president of the New Territories Association of Societies (NTAS) who has been Legislative Councillor since 2012.

The Tin Shui Wai new town is also dominated by the pro-Beijing forces. The pro-democrats have limited influence in the district, such as Zachary Wong and Kwong Chun-yu in Long Ping Estate and the pro-Taipei Democratic Alliance's Johnny Mak in Fung Cheung. On the capacity of Yuen Long District Councillor, Kwong was elected to the Legislative Council through the District Council (Second) constituency in 2016.

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

Constituency represented

Leadership

References