HKU POP SITE releases the latest popularity ratings of 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 the top 10 Legislative Councillors. 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 25, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa, people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction and their appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR Government in general will be released. We will also release the latest results of people's trust in the HKSAR and Beijing Central Governments, as well as their confidence with Hong Kong's future, China's future and "one country, two systems".

Between February 4 and 7, 2003, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,020 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. Results showed that Chan Yuen-han, Rita Fan and Selina Chow were the 3 most popularly supported Legislative Councillors, attaining 60.5, 58.4 and 57.6 marks correspondingly. Lee Cheuk-yan and Emily Lau ranked 4th and 5th, with support ratings of 56.7 and 54.7 marks respectively. The 6th to 10th ranks fell to Szeto Wah, Martin Lee, James Tien, Andrew Wong and Jasper Tsang correspondingly. The mean score obtained by the top five councillors was 57.6 marks, while that for the top ten was 55.4 marks, similar to the figures registered last November.

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 the highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in late January (January 20-23). In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 legislators whom they knew best. Martin Lee, Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-yan, Jasper Tsang and Szeto Wah were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. Those 12 who were named most frequently then entered into the second stage rating survey. Lau Chin-shek, who was the most popular legislator in the last survey, ranked 13th in the first stage naming survey this time, and failed to qualify for the second stage rating survey.

During the second stage rating survey conducted in early February, 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 2 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 the year 1998.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following observations on the latest round of rating exercises: "Since the new Legislative Council was elected in September 2000, POP has conducted 10 rounds of rating surveys on the popularity of top 10 Legislative Councillors. As Martin Lee, Emily Lau, Szeto Wah, Lee Cheuk-yan, Selina Chow and Andrew Wong are on the list every time, they are clearly the most well known legislators. Rita Fan and Lau Chin-shek showed up 9 times, Jasper Tsang 8 times, James Tien 7 times, and Chan Yuen-han 5 times^*. They can be considered as belonging to the second layer of the most well known legislators. In terms of ranking, there is no doubt that Chan Yuen-han and Lau Chin-shek are the most supported legislators, each topping the list for 5 times out of 10. This equal split between Chan and Lau, in way, also indicates that union leaders are clear winners of the popularity race. Lau dropped out in the last rating exercise because of his recent low profile, but Chan was not too better off. Although Chan topped the list this time, she was often left out in the final round because of her lower recognition rate. However, when she comes, she comes to the top. She can be regarded as a "strong-at-the-peripheral" type, meaning that she enjoys relatively high support ratings, but with lower recognition rates. Lau used to be a "strong-at-the-core" type, with high support ratings and recognition rates, but has recently moved to the peripheral. Looking at the last 5 rating exercises, Rita Fan, Selina Chow and Lee Cheuk-yan belong to the "strong-at-the-core" type, because they have been among the top 5 throughout. Since they are returned by different constituencies, and with very different political backgrounds, Hong Kong people are, in fact, quite encompassing vis--vis political parties."

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 1,020 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of the top 10 legislators is less than plus/minus 1.4 marks, while that for percentages in the naming survey is 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.

* Erratum : James Tien showed up 7 times instead of 5 times as reported in the original release.