HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

“PopVote Civil Referendum Project” kicks off again and calls for public donations

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong and Centre for Social Policy Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University jointly held a press conference some time ago to introduce the future development of the “PopVote Civil Referendum Project”, as well as to invite donations of HKD800,000 from public to construct and enhance the e-Voting system. The general public can log onto the "Donate Now" page of the "PopVote" website (http://popvote.hk) and leave their contact information if they wish to make a donation.

POP interviewed 1,005 Hong Kong people between February 1 to 6, 2013 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey conducted before the Chinese New Year Day shows that overall popularity of CE CY Leung continues to drop from low to record low since he was elected as CE. His latest support rating stands at 46.3 marks, approval rate at 31%, disapproval rate at 53%, giving a net popularity of negative 22 percentage points. In terms of timing, these figures have already included the effect of CPPCC member Liu Meng-xiong’s accusation of CE CY Leung being dishonest, but have not yet included the effect of Leung’s threat to sue HKEJ for libel due to Lian Yi-zheng’s article, meaning there is still downward pressure on CE’s popularity. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 60.6 marks, her approval rate 57%, disapproval rate 9%, and her net popularity dropped 9 percentage points significantly to positive 48 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 57.8 marks, approval rate 54%, disapproval rate 8%, giving a net approval rate of positive 46 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 47.8 marks, approval rate 24%, disapproval rate 18%, giving a net popularity of positive 6 percentage points. Yuen’s support rating and net approval rate have both registered record lows since he became SJ. Carrie Lam remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 5 of the 12 Directors have gone up, 5 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man, Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang and Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing registered significant changes in net approval rates, up by 9 percentage points and down by 8, 8, 6 and 6 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularity, at negative 19 and 29 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam, John Tsang, Matthew Cheung and Lai Tung-kwok now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Anthony Cheung, Wong Kam-sing, Tsang Tak-sing, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Ceajer Chan, Raymond Tam, Gregory So, Rimsky Yuen and Paul Tang can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. CY Leung falls into the category of “depressing” performer, while no one falls into that of “disastrous”. The maximum sampling errors of all approval and disapproval rates is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures and net approval rates need another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 65%.

[6] Errors are calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. “95% confidence level” means 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sampling error. Sampling errors of ratings and net approval rates are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

[7] Based on 95% confidence interval.

[8] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. "95% confidence level" means 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. Media can state "sampling error of rating not more than +/-1.6, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3%, sampling error of net approval rates not more than +/-6% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[9] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.
[10] This survey was the instant survey after the Policy Address and only asked rating of CE as well as his vote of confidence.

[11] The frequency of this series of questions is different from that of CE popularity ratings. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals. Starting from 2011, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, the sample size for each question also varies.
[12] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. "95% confidence level" means 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. Media can state "sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-2.1, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, sampling error of net approval rates not more than +/-5% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[13] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

Latest popularity figures of Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system are summarized below, in descending order of net approval rates:

[14] Starting from 2006, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, the sample size for each question also varies.
[15] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means 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. Media can state “sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% and sampling error of net approval rates not more than +/-7% at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[16] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.
[17] In one decimal place, the respective net approval rates of Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang and Secretary for Constitutional and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam are 15.8 and 15.5 percentage points. Thus, they are ranked seventh and eighth respectively.

The latest survey showed that, CE CY Leung scored 46.3 marks, and 31% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 22 percentage point. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 60.6, 57.8 and 47.8 marks, and 57%, 54% and 24% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 48, 46 and 6 percentage points respectively.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, according to the net approval rates, results revealed that the top position goes to Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man, attaining positive 68 percentage points. The 2nd to 4th places belong to Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung, Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan with net approval rates positive 43, positive 42 and positive 37 percentage points respectively. Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng and Secretary for Development Paul Chan ranked 5th to 12th, their corresponding net approval rates are positive 27, positive 22, positive 20, positive 18, positive 10, positive 9, negative 19 and negative 29 percentage points. In other words, only Ko Wing-man scored net approval rate of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux.

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site", to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey of some items was conducted from 2 to 9 January, 2013 while this survey was conducted from 1 to 6 February, 2013. During this period, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung.

Our survey conducted before the Chinese New Year Day shows that overall popularity of CE CY Leung continues to drop from low to record low since he was elected as CE. His latest support rating stands at 46.3 marks, approval rate at 31%, disapproval rate at 53%, giving a net popularity of negative 22 percentage points. In terms of timing, these figures have already included the effect of CPPCC member Liu Meng-xiong’s accusation of CE CY Leung being dishonest, but have not yet included the effect of Leung’s threat to sue HKEJ for libel due to Lian Yi-zheng’s article, meaning there is still downward pressure on CE’s popularity.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 60.6 marks, her approval rate 57%, disapproval rate 9%, and her net popularity dropped 9 percentage points significantly to positive 48 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 57.8 marks, approval rate 54%, disapproval rate 8%, giving a net approval rate of positive 46 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 47.8 marks, approval rate 24%, disapproval rate 18%, giving a net popularity of positive 6 percentage points. Yuen’s support rating and net approval rate have both registered record lows since he became SJ. Carrie Lam remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 5 of the 12 Directors have gone up, 5 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man, Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang and Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing registered significant changes in net approval rates, up by 9 percentage points and down by 8, 8, 6 and 6 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularity, at negative 19 and 29 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director.

According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam, John Tsang, Matthew Cheung and Lai Tung-kwok now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Anthony Cheung, Wong Kam-sing, Tsang Tak-sing, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Ceajer Chan, Raymond Tam, Gregory So, Rimsky Yuen and Paul Tang can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. CY Leung falls into the category of “depressing” performer, while no one falls into that of “disastrous”.

The following table summarizes the grading of CE and the principal officials for readers' easy reference:

• February 19, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Freedom, social and legal indicators