HKU POP SITE releases the latest figures on CE's rating and four subjective freedom indicatorsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest survey figures on CE's rating and four subjective freedom indicators, namely, "speech", "press", "publication", and "procession and demonstration" (although they had been carried in our monthly newsletter the "POP Express" before).　Since the beginning of this month, our POP Site has been releasing the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next two weeks. The POP Site will review and adjust this operation regularly, readers are welcome to leave their comments here.

According to this schedule, the date of our next release will be March 5, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, and the latest ratings of the top ten Legislative Councillors will be released. Since the Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung will announce the first Budget of his term on March 6, Wednesday, we will release people's instant reactions towards the Budget the next day (March 7, Thursday) at 2 pm. Then, on March 12, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, we will release the latest findings on the ratings of the Chief Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and the Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung.

According to the latest figures released today, CE Tung Chee-hwa's rating registered in mid-February is 54.3, 1.8 marks lower than that of early February. The figure has dropped back to the level registered in mid-January, before Tung held his consultation sessions with Election Committee members in his quest for the second term as CE. This shows that the effects of his consultation sessions have diminished.

Regarding the four subjective freedom indicators on "speech", "press", "publication", and "procession and demonstration", the latest figures (in mid-January) are 7.7 marks, 7.6 marks, 7.6 marks and 7.0 marks respectively, all at recent peaks. The figures for "speech" and "press" freedoms are also the highest ratings recorded since the handover (please see the charts with per-poll figures). On the macro level, the scores for all four freedom indicators have co-varied with each other, with the scores for "freedom of procession and demonstration" always lower than the other three, and fluctuated much more. Generally speaking, "freedom of publication" has the highest score, followed by "freedom of press", and then "freedom of speech", with small differences amongst them. As regards the trend of change, most indicators fell to historic low in mid-1998, and then fluctuated upward to reach the recent peaks.

All new surveys reported in the POP Site today are random telephone surveys conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of all surveys is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of Chief Executive's rating is less than plus/minus 1.4 marks and that of various freedom indicators is less than plus/minus 0.12 marks. That means if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not be able to provide additional comments. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.