Starry Lee

Lee was born on 13 March 1974 in Hong Kong into a working-class family and was raised in Ping Shek Estate, a public housing development. She attended Ping Shek Estate Catholic Primary School and FDBWA Szeto Ho Secondary School, where she was a head prefect in Form 6. She attained A grades for accounting and history in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. When considering the two subject areas as career paths, her parents persuaded her to become an accountant because they belived professionals led a more stable life. She graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1996. Before working for KPMG Hong Kong, Lee had also been employed by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Crowe Hong Kong. == District Council career ==

In the 1990s, Lee received political mentorship from Li Lin, a pro-Beijing district councillor. A member of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, she campaigned as a unionist. After a month of campaigning, At 26, Lee became the youngest district councillor. That was despite a political environment unfavourable to the pro-Beijing camp. In 2003, the camp faced its worst electoral defeat after the Hong Kong government tabled a controversial national security bill, overall unpopularity of the Tung Chee-hwa government and during economic malaise caused by the SARS epidemic. In June 2004, she joined the DAB as the party sought wider support beyond its working-class base. Along with Horace Cheung, Gary Chan, and Ben Chan, Lee was considered part of the party's "second-tier" members of mostly younger professionals. and helped Tsang to win a seat in Kowloon West. By 2005, the party had targeted Lee for training, with Tsang as her mentor. == Legislative Council career ==

in 2008 as a LegCo candidate In the 2008 Legislative Council election, Tsang switched his constituency to Hong Kong Island, allowing Lee to stand for the vacant seat he left in Kowloon West. Her campaign was run by Kan Chi-ho, who was also Tsang's campaign manager. Kan took Lee to meet community leaders to seek their support. Lee's list received 39,013 votes (18.9%), the most in the constituency, In 2012, she was appointed to the Executive Council by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. At the time, she was the only person to hold positions in three different levels of representative councils, the Executive, Legislative and District Councils. She served on the Executive Council until her resignation in March 2016 to focus on her work on the Legislative Council and the party. Her position was taken by Ip Kwok-him, a long-time DAB legislator. In the 2012 Legislative Council election, Lee left Kowloon West to contest one of five seats in the new District Council (Second) functional constituency that is elected by all voters in Hong Kong. Her ticket received 277,143 votes (17.4%), the second-most votes received behind the ticket of the Democratic Party's James To that received 316,468 votes (19.9%). On 17 April 2015, she replaced Tam Yiu-chung as the leader of the DAB, making her the first woman to hold the post. She was the youngest party chairperson at age 41; the transition was described as a generational shift. DAB legislator Leung Che-cheung commented that Lee was qualified but inexperienced to assert authority, unlike veteran politicians such as Tam or Ip Kwok-him. On becoming leader, Lee said she aimed to take more seats in the 2015 District Council elections by focusing on voters who were against the 2014 Hong Kong protests, and to continue to support universal suffrage in Chief Executive elections from 2017. In March 2016, she resigned from the Executive Council to focus on the DAB. After Lee was re-elected in the 2016 election, she succeeded Andrew Leung of the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) as the House Committee chairperson, the second-highest office in the Legislative Council. On 18 May 2020, Lee was re-elected as House Committee chairperson. Prior to the vote, Chan Kin-por, the nominee of Legislative Council president Andrew Leung, had taken the seat of the presiding member – a position which had been held since October 2019 by pro-democrat Dennis Kwok – with the help of security personnel, and 15 pro-democratic lawmakers had been removed from the meeting room after scuffles had broken out; during Lee's election, three pro-democrats sat outside the room in protest. After the physical removal of the pro-democratic lawmakers, Lee was elected. In March 2021, Lee supported changes that would reduce the power of Legislative Council members, claiming that opposition members had blocked legislation and caused a power vacuum. In October 2021, Lee and fellow lawmaker Holden Chow were criticised by the mother of Amber Poon, claiming that Lee and Chow were "vanishing" after holding a press conference in 2019 with her, to push forward the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill. During the 2021 Hong Kong legislative election, Lee dismissed concerns that the record-low voter turnout of 30.2% was problematic. In December 2021, Lee was re-elected through Kowloon Central constituency with 95,976 votes. In January 2022, Lee, Andrew Leung and Ma Fung-kwok pushed for the Chinese national emblem to be permanently added to the Legislative Council chamber. Leung had earlier said it would be only temporary for the swearing in of lawmakers. In November, after a rugby match in South Korea played Glory to Hong Kong for the Hong Kong team, Lee said that Asia Rugby should apologise to "the Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people|entire [Chinese] population." == President of the Legislative Council ==

In September 2025, Andrew Leung announced his intention not to seek re-election as the President of the Legislative Council after the end of the 7th legislative session. In the legislative election in December, Lee was re-elected through Kowloon Central with 53,529 votes (41.2%), a plurality in the constituency. On 2 January 2026, 10 Legislative Council members nominated Lee to run for President of the Legislative Council. Colleagues who supported her included Liberal Party Chairman Peter Shiu, priest Peter Douglas Koon, businessman Andrew Lam Siu-lo, and DAB members Ben Chan and Jody Kwok. In the chamber before the vote, Lee said once elected she would no longer take part in meetings or decision-making of the DAB parliamentary group. She also promised "on principle" to abstain from voting on resolutions or expressing her opinion on policy issues. On policy, she said the council should accommodate the national 15th Five-Year Plan and cooperate with the Hong Kong executive branch under an "executive-led" system a system of governance that favours a strong executive of career officials loyal to Beijing with weaker power and checks and balances from the legislative branch. Lee narrowly defeated Chan Chun-ying, the pro-Beijing legislator for the finance sector, with 47 against Chan's 42. == National politics ==

In 2018, she was invited to sit on the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). In February 2022, Lee did not attend the 2022 Two Sessions as a Hong Kong delegate. In March 2023, Lee was elected to the National People's Congress and succeeded Tam Yiu-chung as Hong Kong's delegate to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC). In August, she announced that she would not seek re-election as DAB chair because of "limited time and work capability". Gary Chan succeeded her as party leader a month later. == Political positions ==

Education Lee opposed abolishing the Territory-wide System Assessment for Primary 3 students in 2015. Same-sex relationships Lee did not attend the 2026 vote on the Registration of Same-sex Partnerships Bill, which proposed a framework to grant limited legal rights to same-sex partnerships recognised outside Hong Kong. She said she understood that same-sex partners "faced difficulties" in areas such as hospital visitation rights and inheritance, but said the government should consider solutions without resorting to legislation. == Personal life ==

Lee has a daughter with her husband, who works in the logistics industry. ==See also==