HKU POP SITE releases the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa, people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction, 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, people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction, their 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 April 1, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest findings on people's satisfaction with the current political, economic and social conditions will be released.

Between March 17 and 19, 2003, after CE Tung Chee-hwa has issued his written criticism of FS Antony Leung Kam-chung while rejecting his resignation, and also after Leung attended the Panel on Constitutional Affairs Meeting, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,068 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. Results showed that the latest rating of Tung was 43.9 marks, which was similar to that of mid-March (March 12-13).

Our latest findings also indicated that only 8% of the respondents were satisfied with Tung's policy direction, a drop of 3 percentage points from that of mid-February to set the first record below 10%. On the other hand, 53% of the respondents were dissatisfied, a significant increase of 6 percentage points from that of mid-February to set its historic high, also breaking the level of 50% for the first time. Besides, the proportion of respondents who said "half-half" and who did not give a definite answer were 25% and 14% respectively.

Regarding people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government, the latest results revealed that 12% of the respondents were satisfied with its performance, 59% were dissatisfied, 25% said "half-half", while 5% did not give a definite answer. When compared with the findings of mid-February, the satisfaction figure has dropped by 3 percentage points to set its record low again, whereas the dissatisfaction figure has further increased by 3 percentage points to reach its new record high. It has risen for 3 consecutive times since 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 18% of the respondents were satisfied, 36% were not, 27% said "half-half", while 18% did not give a definite answer. The dissatisfaction figure has been on the rise since July last year, with an accumulated increment of 16 percentage points. When compared to the results obtained in late January, the dissatisfaction figure has significantly increased by 5 percentage points, which was the highest level since the First SAR Legislative Council was formed in July 1998.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following observations on the latest findings: "The fact that people's satisfaction with CE's policy direction fell below 10% for the first time, and that their satisfaction with the entire government was only 12%, is a clear reflection of their dissatisfaction with the current situation. CE's rating changed very little before and after he handled the Antony Leung Affair. His average popularity rating in March was around 43.5 marks, representing a drop of 2 marks from February. It seems that the recent incident has affected the government's credibility more than CE's personal rating."

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 1,068 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of the rating of CE is plus/minus 1.2 marks, while that of all percentages 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.