李華明

English

Fred Li Wah-ming (born in Hong Kong in 1955) is a registered social worker and former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, belonging to the Democratic Party. Of Shanghai ancestry, he holds a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and a Master of Social Work. A social worker by profession, he joined the pro-democracy group Meeting Point in the late 1980s and was elected a Kwun Tong District Councillor, serving until 1994. In 1991, when direct elections were first introduced to the Legislative Council, he stood for Kowloon East on the Meeting Point ticket and was elected alongside Szeto Wah of the United Democrats; the two pro-establishment candidates, Chan Yuen-han and Chan Kam-lam, also won, so the four seats were split evenly between the two camps. In 1995 he contested the newly created Kowloon East South constituency and won, serving until 1997. Meeting Point merged with the United Democrats in 1994 to form the Democratic Party, of which he was a founding member. From the first Legislative Council term in 1998 he served four successive terms for Kowloon East until he stood down in 2012, handing over to a party colleague — a parliamentary career spanning more than twenty years across the handover. In the 2008 contest he was re-elected to one of Kowloon East's four seats together with the DAB's Chan Kam-lam, the Civic Party's Alan Leong and the FTU's Wong Kwok-hing. In office he was Deputy Chairman of the House Committee and chaired the Panel on Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene, and he also served on the Housing Authority, the ICAC Complaints Committee and the Action Committee Against Narcotics, and was a director of the Senior Citizen Home Safety Association. His social-work background made him a particular advocate for grassroots welfare, the elderly and disadvantaged groups. He was awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star and is a Justice of the Peace.