Nomination period for village representatives election starts 9 November

20 October 2018 Erithacus DISTRICT COUNCIL, POLITICS 0

Everyone one of us who lives in a village whinges much of the time about how the place is run. Well, now’s your chance to do something about it. The 2019 Rural Ordinary Election will be held in January next year.

The Village Representative (including Indigenous Inhabitant Representative and Resident Representative) Election will be conducted on two consecutive Sundays on 6 and 13 January 2019.

The nomination period will be from 9 – 22 November 2018.

The Rural Ordinary Election is arranged as stipulated in the Rural Representative Election Ordinance. At present, there are 709 villages with a total of 1,484 Village Representative seats, including 695 Resident Representative seats and 789 Indigenous Inhabitant Representative seats. In addition, there are 39 and 17 Kaifong Representative seats for the Market Towns of Cheung Chau and Peng Chau respectively.

An Indigenous Inhabitant Representative is returned by electors of Indigenous/ Composite Indigenous Village. They reflect views on the affairs of an indigenous village on behalf of the indigenous inhabitants of that Village, and deal with all affairs relating to the lawful traditional rights and interests, and the traditional way of life, of those indigenous inhabitants.

A Resident Representative is returned by electors of Existing Village. They reflect views on the affairs of a village on behalf of the residents of that village, and do not deal with any affairs relating to the lawful traditional rights and interests of indigenous inhabitants.

Many villages have not had a Rural Representative for many years, with many positions vacant.

The eligibility requirements to be nominated as a Indigenous Inhabitant Representative are: