HKU POP SITE releases the latest popularity ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa, CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, FS Antony Leung Kam-chung and the top ten Legislative CouncillorsBack

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 popularity ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa, CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, FS Antony Leung Kam-chung and the top ten Legislative Councillors. Our current practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday normally 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 of our next release will be June 4, 2002, the latest results on people's satisfaction with the freedom of press in Hong Kong, their appraisal of the credibility of the news media in Hong Kong, as well as our annual survey on the June Fourth Incident will be released, earlier than usual at 10 am. Then, on June 11, 2002, at 2 pm, we will release the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and the most well-known political groups.

According to the latest figures released today, CE Tung Chee-hwa's rating registered in mid-May (May 14-16) was 53.9, which was almost the same as that of early May, though 0.1 mark higher. Meanwhile, the popularity ratings of CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and FS Antony Leung Kam-chung were 65.7 marks and 62.2 marks respectively. Compared with the figures of mid-April, the rating of CS dropped by 0.3 marks while that of FS increased by 0.6 marks, both changes being statistically not significant.

As regards the latest ratings of the top ten Legislative Councillors (May 2-7), the top three were Chan Yuen-han, Rita Fan and Lau Chin-shek, attaining 62.0 marks, 61.8 marks and 60.0 marks respectively. Selina Chow and Lee Cheuk-yan ranked fourth and fifth, with support ratings of 59.7 marks and 58.2 marks respectively. The sixth to the tenth ranks fell to James Tien, Andrew Wong, Szeto Wah, Emily Lau and Martin Lee correspondingly. The mean score obtained by the top five councillors was 60.3 marks, while that for the top ten was 57.1 marks. When compared with the results captured in early February, both averages have increased, by 1.4 marks and 1.3 marks respectively. It is worth mentioning that, Chan Yuen-han, who topped the list in this survey, has been receiving high popularity ratings in similar surveys conducted over the past year, however, because her recognition rate did not reach top ten, she was not included in the list.

The research design of our "Top 10 Legislative Councillors" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top councillors listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in mid-April (April 15-17). In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 legislators whom they knew best. Martin Lee, Emily Lau, James Tien, Szeto Wah and Lee Cheuk-yan were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. Those twelve who were named most frequently were then entered into the second stage rating survey. During the second stage rating survey, which was conducted in early May, respondents were asked to rate each legislator in turn using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support, and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom two legislators in terms of recognition rate were dropped, leaving behind the top 10. For easy reference, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since year 2000.

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, CS and FS are less than plus/minus 1.4 marks, 1.0 mark and 1.2 marks respectively, while that of all top 10 legislators is less than plus/minus 1.6 marks, while that for percentages in the naming survey is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. 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.