While Starry Lee’s political future looks bright, the DAB faces irrelevance

Starry Lee is leaving party leadership and district council work behind to focus on national politics

For her successor, the challenge is to find a future for the DAB in a changed landscape where political parties are sidelined

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A man walks past a banner featuring Starry Lee, in To Kwa Wan on July 6, a constituency in Kowloon where she first won as an independent in 1999. She founded her political career in grass-roots and community work but now, district councillors have drastically diminished influence. Photo: AFP

Alice Wu

Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA.

Published: 6:15am, 14 Aug 2023

After eight years, Starry Lee Wai-king is stepping down from the leadership of Hong Kong’s largest political party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB).

Lee, who cited concerns about her workload as the sole Hong Kong member of the country’s top legislative body – the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee – as her reason for not seeking re-election as DAB chairwoman, was the first woman to head the party. She is also Hong Kong’s youngest representative and only its second woman to ascend to China’s apex of power. These are extraordinary achievements, and Lee is only 49 years old.

She had earlier said she would not be contesting the district council elections in December. As a Kowloon City district council member representing the same constituency, To Kwa Wan North, for more than two decades, Lee not only started her phenomenal political career there in 1999, but also survived the greatest electoral setback of the DAB and pro-establishment camp in 2019.

The DAB lost 96 seats under Lee’s watch, going from 117 to just 21, even though Lee held onto her seat, winning against “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung.