Southern District Council is the district council for the Southern District in

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 city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. It is one of 18 such councils. The Southern District Council currently consists of 17 members, of which the district is divided into 17 constituencies, electing a total of 17 members. The last election was held on 24 November 2019.

History

The Southern District Council was established on 4 December 1981 under the name of the Southern 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 four ...

'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 pe ...

refrained from appointing any member. The Southern District Board became Southern 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 Chin ...

. The Southern 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 Southern District Council has been dominated by the conservative independents. It was once the stronghold of the traditional political group Hong Kong Civic Association in the 1980s, in which they received a great victory in the 1985 election and elected its member Lam Kwok-kwong as the board chairman. The Hong Kong Civic Association allied with the conservative

Liberal Democratic Federation of Hong Kong The Liberal Democratic Federation of Hong Kong (, abbreviated 自民聯; LDF) was a pro-Beijing pro-business and conservative political party in Hong Kong. It was established in 1990, and was composed of mainly conservative businessmen and prof ...

(LDF) in the 1991 election, while the liberal

United Democrats of Hong Kong The United Democrats of Hong Kong (; UDHK) was a short-lived political party in Hong Kong founded in 1990 as the united front of the liberal democracy forces in preparation of the 1991 first ever direct election for the Legislative Council of ...

(UDHK) also established its presence in the district concentrated in

Wah Fu Estate Wah Fu Estate () is a public housing estate located next to Waterfall Bay, Pok Fu Lam in Hong Kong's Southern District. It was built on a new town concept in 1967 and was renovated in 2003. Divided into Wah Fu (I) Estate () and Wah Fu (II) E ...

, led by

Huang Chen-ya Huang Chen-ya, MBE (; born 4 November 1939) is a neurologist and member of the Democratic Party and was the member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (1991–97) for Hong Kong Island West. Biography He was a third-generation of Chinese ...

who was later elected to the Legislative Council in the same year. The Southern District Council has been controlled by the pro-Beijing camp since 1997, even though the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

maintained their presence in

Wah Fu Wah Fu () is an area located in Southern District, Hong Kong, Southern District, on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. Wah Fu mainly consists of the Public housing in Hong Kong, public housing estates, Wah Fu Estate and Wah Kwai Estate. They were built ...

and some other constituencies. It also bred its young party members

Lo Kin-hei Lo Kin-hei (; born 1 June 1984) is the Chairman of the Democratic Party and Southern District Council. He has been a Southern District Councillor for Lei Tung II constituency from 2012 to 2021. Career Born in 1984, Lo graduated from the Univ ...

and

Au Nok-hin Au Nok-hin (; born 18 June 1987) is a pro-democracy politician in Hong Kong. He is the former member of the Legislative Council for Hong Kong Island from 2018 to 2019 and member of the Southern District Council for Lei Tung I from 2012 to 20 ...

who both took the Lei Tung constituencies away from long-held conservative independent councillors in the 2011 election. In the 2019 elections, the pro-democrats achieved the majority in the council in a historic landslide victory brought by the pro-democracy protests. Kelvin Lam Ho-por, a substitute for

Joshua Wong Joshua Wong Chi-fung (; born 13 October 1996) is a Hong Kong activist and politician. He served as secretary-general of the pro-democracy party Demosistō until it disbanded following the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law ...

who was disqualified from running, defeated Judy Chan Ka-pui of the New People's Party in South Horizons West.

Political control

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

Political makeup

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 operate ...

are held every four years.

District result maps

File:1994DBelectionmapd.svg, 1994 File:1999DCelectionmapd.svg, 1999 File:2003DCelectionmapd.svg, 2003 File:2007DCelectionmapd.svg, 2007 File:2011DCelectionmapd.svg, 2011 File:Southern District Council 2015.svg, 2015 File:Southern 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

{{coord, 22.2474, 114.1590, display=title Districts of Hong Kong Southern District, Hong Kong District Councils of Hong Kong