HKU POP SITE releases the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability systemBack

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 ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability system. 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 22, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest results on the 4 subjective freedom indicators on Hong Kong's freedom of "speech", "press", "publication", and "procession and demonstration" will be released.

Between April 4 and 9, 2003, around one month after the first case of atypical pneumonia was found in Hong Kong, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,066 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. Results showed that the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa was 41.3 marks, representing a significant drop of 2.6 marks from that of mid-March to set another record low. The latest ratings of CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and FS Antony Leung Kam-chung were 58.6 and 40.4 marks respectively, indicating significant drops of 1.5 and 4.5 marks from those of mid-March respectively, with FS's rating also at record low. On the other hand, the popularity rating of SJ Elsie Leung Oi-sie was 47.0 marks, representing a significant increase of 4.0 marks from that of early March, and overtook the rating of FS for the first time.

With respect to the popularity ranking of Directors of Bureaux, the latest findings obtained in early April revealed that the most popular official remained to be Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung, attaining 61.5 marks, and leading with quite a wide margin from the rest. Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Henry Tang Ying-yen and Secretary for Economic Development and Labour Stephen Ip Shu-kwan ranked 2nd and 3rd, with popularity ratings of 55.0 and 54.8 marks respectively. Secretary for Security Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee and Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li Kwok-cheung shared the 4th rank, both attaining 53.2 marks. Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Michael Suen Ming-yeung, Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong and Secretary for the Civil Service Joseph Wong Wing-ping ranked from 6th to 8th, with popularity ratings of 52.4, 51.8 and 50.4 marks correspondingly. Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping and Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung ranked 9th and 10th, attaining 49.9 and 46.2 marks respectively. The 11th rank fell to Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma Si-hang, attaining 41.3 marks.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following observations on the latest findings: "There is little doubt that the plunge in FS Antony Leung's rating was entirely due to his car purchase incident. Having lost 9.4 marks since he announced the Budget in early March, Leung has become the most unpopular Principal Official under the accountability system. CE Tung Chee-hwa's record-low popularity rating, on the other hand, might well have reflected people's dissatisfaction with his way of handling atypical pneumonia (SARS), because his rating only began to drop again in late March, to another historic low. On the contrary, the popularity rating of Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong, the Principal Official responsible for handling SARS, has only dropped by 1.2 marks, which is not significant. Likewise, the popularity rating of Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li, who was responsible for suspending classes due to SARS, did not change much. Meanwhile, there were some significant increases in the popularity ratings of SJ Elsie Leung, Secretary for Security Regina Ip, and Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Henry Tang. The first two officials have probably benefited from the cooling down of the Basic Law Article 23 Issue, whereas Tang's popularity must have been boosted by the tough line he has adopted against the Swiss Government's banning of Hong Kong manufacturers from participating in the World Watch and Jewellery Show."

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 1,066 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling errors of the latest ratings of CE, CS, FS and SJ are plus/minus 1.4, 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4 marks correspondingly, while those of the ratings of Directors of Bureaux are less than plus/minus 1.6 marks. 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.