HKU POP SITE releases the latest figures on ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa, CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and FS Antony Leung Kam-chung, and the results of four subjective social 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 figures on the popularity ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa, CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and FS Antony Leung Kam-chung, and the results of the four subjective social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity", and "stability". Our current practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, 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.

According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be May 14, 2002, at 2 pm; the latest results of people's trust in the HKSAR and Beijing Central Governments will be released. Then, on May 21, 2000, at 2 pm, we will release the latest figures on the popularity rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa, and the latest survey figures on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government, its Secretaries, and members of the Legislative and Executive Councils in general. The results of the four subjective indicators on Hong Kong's freedom of "speech", "press", "publication", and "procession and demonstration" will also be released.

According to the latest figures released today, CE Tung Chee-hwa's rating registered in mid-April (April 15 - 17) was 54.1, which is almost the same as that of early April, though 0.3 marks higher. The popularity ratings of CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and FS Antony Leung Kam-chung were 66.0 marks and 61.6 marks respectively. Compared with that of mid-March, the rating of the former increased by 1.5 marks while the latter dropped by 1.7 marks.

Regarding the four subjective indicators of Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity", and "stability", our tracking surveys showed that people were much more positive about the degree of freedom than the other three items. The latest score for freedom was 7.5 on a scale from 0 - 10, stability and democracy were both 6.3, and prosperity 5.9. Compared with the results captured in January, a general increase in the ratings of all four indicators was observed. "Democracy", "freedom" and "prosperity" have all increased by 0.3 marks, while "stability" has increased by 0.2 marks.

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 errors of the ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa, CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and FS Antony Leung Kam-chung were less than plus/minus 1.3 marks, 1.0 mark and 1.2 marks respectively, while that of the social indicators was 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 comment on the findings at this stage. 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.