HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong has already released the final activity 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 1,002 Hong Kong people between August 1 and 8, 2013 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey conducted before CE CY Leung attended the Tin Shui Wai forum shows that all popularity figures of the CE have remained low, and his net popularity drops to another record low in his term. CE’s support rating now stands at 45.7 marks, approval rate at 26%, disapproval rate at 57%, giving a net popularity of negative 31 percentage points. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 63.3 marks, her approval rate 60%, disapproval rate 6%, and net popularity positive 54 percentage points. As for FS John Tsang, his latest support rating is 56.9 marks, approval rate 51%, disapproval rate 17%, and net popularity positive 34 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 53.0 marks, approval rate at his record high 34%, disapproval rate 12%, giving a net popularity of positive 22 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 11 of the 12 Directors have gone up and only that of Secretary for Development Paul Chan has gone down. Among them, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan, Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok and Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man registered significant changes in net approval rates, up by 15, 14, 12, 11, 8, 8, 8 and 7 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Paul Chan and Eddie Ng registered negative popularities, at negative 45 and 22 percentage points respectively. The former figure is the worst figure ever registered among all Secretaries and Directors since this survey series began in 2002. On the other hand, Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director. At positive 80 percentage points, his net popularity is the best figure ever registered among all Secretaries and Directors in this survey series. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam, Matthew Cheung and John Tsang now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok, Gregory So, Wong Kam-sing, Tsang Tak-sing and Eddie Ng can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Ceajer Chan, Rimsky Yuen, Paul Tang and Raymond Tam can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. Paul Chan and CY Leung fall into the category of “depressing” performer, while no one falls into that of “disastrous”. Director of POP Robert Chung observed, as the popularity of CY Leung’s leadership team plummets, coupled with brain drains and conflicts involving both the police and the triads, the situation has become disturbing. It may well be time that people of all sectors work together to preserve the core values of Hong Kong. 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 +/-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 +/-1.9, 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 +/-7% 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.

The latest survey showed that, CE CY Leung scored 45.7 marks, and 26% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 31 percentage points. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 63.3, 56.9 and 53.0 marks, and 60%, 51% and 34% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 54, 34 and 22 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 80 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 36 and positive 35 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 Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng and Secretary for Development Paul Chan ranked 4th to 12th, their corresponding net approval rates are positive 30, positive 26, positive 22, positive 17, positive 14, positive 12, positive 5, negative 22 and negative 45 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 5 July, 2013 while this survey was conducted from 1 to 8 August, 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 conducted before CE CY Leung attended the Tin Shui Wai forum shows that all popularity figures of the CE have remained low, and his net popularity drops to another record low in his term. CE’s support rating now stands at 45.7 marks, approval rate at 26%, disapproval rate at 57%, giving a net popularity of negative 31 percentage points.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 63.3 marks, her approval rate 60%, disapproval rate 6%, and net popularity positive 54 percentage points. As for FS John Tsang, his latest support rating is 56.9 marks, approval rate 51%, disapproval rate 17%, and net popularity positive 34 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 53.0 marks, approval rate at his record high 34%, disapproval rate 12%, giving a net popularity of positive 22 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 11 of the 12 Directors have gone up and only that of Secretary for Development Paul Chan has gone down. Among them, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan, Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok and Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man registered significant changes in net approval rates, up by 15, 14, 12, 11, 8, 8, 8 and 7 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Paul Chan and Eddie Ng registered negative popularities, at negative 45 and 22 percentage points respectively. The former figure is the worst figure ever registered among all Secretaries and Directors since this survey series began in 2002. However, on the other hand, Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director. At positive 80 percentage points, his net popularity is the best figure ever registered among all Secretaries and Directors in this survey series.

According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam, Matthew Cheung and John Tsang now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok, Gregory So, Wong Kam-sing, Tsang Tak-sing and Eddie Ng can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Ceajer Chan, Rimsky Yuen, Paul Tang and Raymond Tam can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. Paul Chan and CY Leung fall 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:

[16] In one decimal place, the respective approval rates of Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung and FS John Tsang Chun-wah Lai Tung-kwok are 51.1% and 50.8%.
[17] In two decimal places, the respective approval rates of Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing and Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing are 33.50% and 33.49%.
[18] In one decimal place, the respective approval rates of Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang Kwok-wai and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam Chi-yuen are 29.4% and 29.2%.

As the popularity of CY Leung’s leadership team plummets, coupled with brain drains and conflicts involving both the police and the triads, the situation has become disturbing. It may well be time that people of all sectors work together to preserve the core values of Hong Kong.

• August 20, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Taiwan issues