HKU POP SITE releases the latest results on people's rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa and their appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR Government and members of the Legislative Council in generalBack

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 rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa, as well as people's appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR Government and members of the Legislative Council in general. POP's normal 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 forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly.

According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be December 3, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, 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 the ratings of the most well-known political groups will be released.

According to the latest figures released today, CE Tung Chee-hwa's rating registered in mid-November (November 13-20) was 47.4 marks, representing a slight increase of 0.3 mark when compared with that of early November, which was not statistically significant. Regarding people's appraisal of the HKSAR Government, 51% of the respondents were dissatisfied with its performance, 17% were satisfied, 28% said "half-half", while 5% did not give a definite answer. The results were similar to those obtained in mid-October.

As regards people's appraisal of the members of the Legislative Council in general, 31% of the respondents were dissatisfied with their performance, 18% were satisfied, 29% said "half-half", while 22% did not give a definite answer. The figures stayed virtually unchanged when compared with those registered in mid-September.

The new survey reported in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of the rating of CE is plus/minus 1.4 marks, while that of all percentages 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.