HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong has now released the preliminary report and all video records of “OCLP Deliberation Series” DDay1, together with all video records of July 1 Rally for head counting. Please go to these websites for free downloading: “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) and “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk).

POP interviewed 1,001 Hong Kong people between July 2 and 5, 2013 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey shows that after the July 1 Rally all popularity figures of CE CY Leung have not changed much compared with those registered two weeks ago. They continue to remain low. CE’s support rating now stands at 46.5 marks, approval rate at 26%, disapproval rate at 55%, giving a net popularity of negative 29 percentage points. Both his approval rate and net popularity have dropped to record lows in his term. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 61.9 marks, her approval rate 57%, disapproval rate 9%, and net popularity positive 48 percentage points. As for FS John Tsang, his latest support rating is 53.2 marks, approval rate 41%, disapproval rate 21%, and net popularity positive 20 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 52.6 marks, approval rate 28%, disapproval rate 18%, giving a net popularity of positive 10 percentage points. 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 3 of the 12 Directors have gone up and 9 have gone down. Among them, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng and Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok registered significant changes in net approval rates, down by 23, 11, 9, 8 and 7 percentage points respectively. The popularity figures of Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok and Wong Kam-sing are at the poorest since they became Directors of Bureaux. Among all the Directors, Tsang Tak-sing, Paul Chan and Eddie Ng registered negative popularities, at negative 1, 26 and 27 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 now falls under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Matthew Cheung, John Tsang, Ceajer Chan, Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok, Tsang Tak-sing, Wong Kam-sing, Paul Chan and Eddie Ng can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Rimsky Yuen, Raymond Tam, Gregory So 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 68%.

[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 +/-5% 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] 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.
[11] 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 +/-2.0, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, 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.
[12] 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:

[13] Starting from 2006, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, the sample size for each question also varies.
[14] 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 +/-6% at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[15] 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.
[16] In two decimal place, the respective net approval rates of Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So and Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang are 5.01 and 4.98 percentage points. Thus, they were ranked eighth and ninth respectively at that time.

The latest survey showed that, CE CY Leung scored 46.5 marks, and 26% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 29 percentage points. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 61.9, 53.2 and 52.6 marks, and 57%, 41% and 28% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 48, 20 and 10 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 73 percentage points. The 2nd to 3rd places belong to Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan with net approval rates positive 32 and positive 27 percentage points respectively. Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok, Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Development Paul Chan and Secretary for Education Eddie Ng ranked 4th to 12th, their corresponding net approval rates are positive 19, positive 18, positive 8, positive 6, positive 2, zero, negative 1, negative 26 and negative 27 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 3 to 5 June, 2013 while this survey was conducted from 2 to 5 July, 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 latest survey shows that after the July 1 Rally all popularity figures of CE CY Leung have not changed much compared with those registered two weeks ago. They continue to remain low. CE’s support rating now stands at 46.5 marks, approval rate at 26%, disapproval rate at 55%, giving a net popularity of negative 29 percentage points. Both his approval rate and net popularity have dropped to record lows in his term.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 61.9 marks, her approval rate 57%, disapproval rate 9%, and net popularity positive 48 percentage points. As for FS John Tsang, his latest support rating is 53.2 marks, approval rate 41%, disapproval rate 21%, and net popularity positive 20 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 52.6 marks, approval rate 28%, disapproval rate 18%, giving a net popularity of positive 10 percentage points. 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 3 of the 12 Directors have gone up and 9 have gone down. Among them, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng and Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok registered significant changes in net approval rates, down by 23, 11, 9, 8 and 7 percentage points respectively. The popularity figures of Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok and Wong Kam-sing are at the poorest since they became Directors of Bureaux. Among all the Directors, Tsang Tak-sing, Paul Chan and Eddie Ng registered negative popularities, at negative 1, 26 and 27 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 now falls under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Matthew Cheung, John Tsang, Ceajer Chan, Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok, Tsang Tak-sing, Wong Kam-sing, Paul Chan and Eddie Ng can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Rimsky Yuen, Raymond Tam, Gregory So 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:

[17] In one decimal place, the respective approval rates of Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung and Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok are 37.8% and 37.7%.
[18] In one decimal place, the respective approval rates of Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So are 24.0% and 23.8%.

• July 23, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of Top Ten Legislative Councillors