Revamp of district councils sealed

A bill to revamp Hong Kong's district councils has been passed unanimously by 88 lawmakers, slashing the number of directly elected seats to 20 percent.

A total of 176 councillors, representing 40 percent, will be selected through indirect elections, and another 179 government-appointed councillors will take up the remaining 40 percent, leaving 88 seats to be contested through direct elections.

Council hopefuls will also have to be vetted and nominated before they can run for election.

Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak Mei-kuen said the reform will put an end to the "political farce" that has plagued Hong Kong for years.

She said district councils were too politicized in the past and the reform could lead to improvements in district governance.

"Many district councillors in the past were political opportunists and lazy. They did not care about people's livelihoods and would only hype up political issues and incite confrontation during elections to get votes," Mak said. "They sought personal interests, disregarding national security and peace in the city."

At yesterday's Legislative Council meeting, New People's Party chair Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee - also the Executive Council convener - said district councillors will have an even bigger mandate than British members of parliament as the number of voters for each district council seat surges after merging more than 450 constituencies into 44 larger ones.

She said the spectrum of councillors will be wider after the government reintroduces appointed seats so that Western countries can no longer accuse Hong Kong of allowing only one voice.

Many pro-democracy councillors who won seats in 2019 hindered the government from imposing policies that benefited the public and some were incapable and dishonest with seditious intent, Ip said.

That election was "really a failure," she said.

Ip's party mate Dominic Lee Tsz-king, who served as Yau Yat Tsuen district councillor before, said he lost the seat to pro-democracy candidate Lawrence Lau Wai-chung in 2019. But Lee said Lau "disappeared" after being elected and his office was at Prince Edward instead of Yau Yat Tsuen, making it difficult for residents to seek help.

Lee criticized pro-democracy councillors for "making a mess," ignoring matters related to residents' livelihoods and granting money to people in their own camp.

Roundtable lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun said the reform undermined the democracy of the election, but democracy is not the goal of district governance.

"I believe no one wants to live in a place with a high level of democracy and low social civilization," he said.

"The imperfect electoral system in the past has led to abnormal service attitude."

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu welcomed the passage of the bill, saying he was pleased Legco completed its scrutiny and passed it within two months.

"Since 2020, a lot of current-term councillors acted against the functions of district councils, disrupted the conduct of meetings and unscrupulously took actions that were not in line with the functions of district councils as district advisory organizations," Lee said.

"The chaos was a wake-up call for us. We must plug institutional loopholes and completely exclude those anti-China and destabilizing forces from the district councils."

The bill will be gazetted and comes into effect on Monday as Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan Kwok-ki said the government is sparing no effort in forming the next district councils.

"The Electoral Affairs Commission is now stepping up preparations for the district council ordinary election while the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau is setting guidelines for the district council operation and the performance-monitoring mechanism for district councillors," he said.

"The bureau will also recommend suitable candidates to be appointed as district councillors."

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com