HKU POP SITE releases the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa, people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction, the performance of the HKSAR Government and members of the Legislative CouncilBack

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, and people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction, the performance of the HKSAR Government and members of the Legislative Council. 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 February 4, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest results of the four subjective social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity" and "stability" will be released. We will also release the latest findings from a series of questions related to the rule of law in Hong Kong.

Between January 20 and 23, 2003, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,049 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. Results showed that the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa has dropped significantly by 2.1 marks from the 47.3 marks registered in early January to another record low of 45.2 marks. As regards people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction, the latest figures revealed that 14% of the respondents were satisfied, 49% were dissatisfied, 25% said "half-half", while 12% did not give a definite answer. When compared to the results obtained in early January, the dissatisfaction figure has rapidly increased by 13 percentage points in 2 weeks to reach its record high.

Regarding people's appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures showed that 19% of the respondents were satisfied with its performance, 51% were not, 27% said "half-half", while 3% did not give a definite answer. The results were similar to those obtained in mid-December last year.

With respect to people's appraisal of the performance of members of the Legislative Council in general, the latest figures indicated that 17% of the respondents were satisfied, 32% were not, 28% said "half-half", while 23% did not give a definite answer. These figures have stayed virtually unchanged when compared to those registered in mid-November last year.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, has the following comments on the findings: "CE Tung Chee-hwa's popularity rating has by now remained consistently lower than the benchmark of 50 for 6 consecutive months since August last year, frequently setting record lows. This is unprecedented. Had conventional standards used in other countries been applied, like asking whether people would vote for certain leaders tomorrow, or whether they approve the performance of a certain leader, CE Tung's current approval rate would have only been around 20% to 25%, which is a dangerous level for leaders in democratic societies. It is time for the government to draw up measures in order to steer clear of any governance crisis. Whereas no significant change was observed in people's satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, with the performance of the HKSAR Government between mid-December and mid-January, the popularity rating of Tung and people's satisfaction with his policy direction have both dropped significantly. This indicates that people have begun to focus their feeling of dissatisfaction on Tung after he announced his Policy Address".

The new poll released 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 1,049 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of CE's rating is plus/minus 1.4 marks, while that of all percentages are less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. The meaning of "95% confidence level" is that 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 further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.