HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and the GovernmentBack

Press Release on August 27, 2013

Abstract

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,015 Hong Kong people between 15 and 20 August 2013 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey shows that the popularity of CE CY Leung continues to hit the bottom. His support rating drops 2 marks to 43.7 marks, approval rate slightly drops 1 percentage point to 25%, both being record lows since he took office as CE. However, his disapproval rate also slightly drops 1 percentage point, so his net popularity stays unchanged at negative 31 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that those aged between 18 and 29 are most critical of CY Leung as CE. As for the SAR Government, compared to a month ago, satisfaction rate goes up by 2 percentage points, while dissatisfaction rate also goes up by 2 percentage points, so its net satisfaction rate stays at negative 23 percentage points. Because CY Leung’s support rating has gone below the warning line of 45, it is worth discussing whether he is facing a governance crisis. To facilitate this discussion, abstracts from two articles on CE’s popularity previously written by POP Director Robert Chung are also provided in this release for public reference. The maximum sampling error of all percentage figures is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures and net values need another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 66%.

Points to note:
[1] The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.

[2] TThe sample size of this survey is 1,015 successful interviews, not 1,015 x 65.7% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of percentages is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figure and net value needs another calculation. "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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of rating not more than +/-1.7 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, sampling error of net values not more than +/-6% at 95% confidence level".
[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey, and rounding procedures in collating the figures, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used, in order to match the precision level of the figures.
[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses "computerized random telephone survey" to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

Latest Figures

POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of CE CY Leung and the HKSAR Government. As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2012 year-end.

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages^[6]
15-20/8/2013	1,015	65.7%	+/-3%

[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 are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

Recent popularity figures of CE CY Leung and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:

Date of survey	3-5/6/13	13-19/6/13	2-5/7/13	22-25/7/13	1-8/8/13	15-20/8/13	Latest change
Sample base	1,012	1,040	1,001	1,032	1,002	1,015	--
Overall response rate	65.4%	68.0%	68.0%	68.2%	65.2%	65.7%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error^[7]	--
Rating of CE CY Leung	46.7	46.2	46.5	45.1	45.7	43.7+/-1.7	-2.0^[9]
Vote of confidence in CE CY Leung	30%	27%	26%	29%	26%	25+/-3%	-1%
Vote of no confidence in CE CY Leung	54%	55%	55%	54%	57%	56+/-3%	-1%
Net approval rate	-24%	-28%	-29%	-25%	-31%	-31+/-5%	--
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	--	20%^[9]	--	24%	--	26+/-3%	+2%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance^[8]	--	51%^[9]	--	47%	--	49+/-4%	+2%
Net satisfaction rate	--	-31%^[9]	--	-23%^[9]	--	-23+/-6%	--
Mean value^[8]	--	2.5+/-0.1^[9] (Base=644)	--	2.6+/-0.1 (Base =550)	--	2.6+/-0.1 (Base=652)	--

[7] 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 +/-1.7, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, sampling error of net values 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.
[8] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean. Starting from March 2011, this question only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sample size for this series is 667.
[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.

The latest survey showed that, CE Leung Chun-ying scored 43.7 marks, and 25% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 31 percentage points. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 26% were satisfied, whereas 49% were dissatisfied, thus net satisfaction stands at negative 23 percentage points. The mean score is 2.6, which is in between "quite dissatisfied" and "half-half".

Indepth Analysis

In the survey, we also asked respondents for their age. If they were reluctant to give their exact age, they could give us a range. Herewith further analysis of the support rate of Leung Chun-ying as Chief Executive by respondents' age, with sub-sample size placed in brackets:

Date of survey: 15-20/8/2013		18-29	30-49	50 or above	Overall sample
Support / Oppose Leung Chun-ying as CE^[10]	Support	14+/-5% (26)	23+/-4% (88)	33+/-5% (141)	25+/-3% (256)
	Oppose	75+/-6% (140)	57+/-5% (219)	48+/-5% (207)	56+/-3% (567)
	Don’t know / Hard to say	11+/-5% (21)	20+/-4% (77)	20+/-4% (84)	18+/-2% (183)
	Total	100% (188)	100% (384)	100% (433)	100% (1,005)

[10] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

Opinion Daily

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-by-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 22 to 25 July, 2013 while this survey was conducted from 15 to 20 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.

19/8/13	Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announces plans to expand the airport and housing policy reform.
11/8/13	Leung Chun-ying attends a public forum in Tin Shui Wai.
7/8/13	Office of the Chief Executive releases new declaring guidelines on conflict of interest for politically appointed officials.
5/8/13	Cow & Gate announces to recall 100,000 cans of baby formula in Hong Kong and Macau.
4/8/13	Supporters and detractors of school teacher Alpais Lam Wai-sze hold a rally; the incident turns into a conflict at Mong Kok.
2/8/13	Henry Ho Kin-chung, political assistant to Secretary for Development resigns.
1/8/13	Franklin Lam Fan-keung resigns from the Executive Council.
29/7/13	Many newspapers report the follow up of Hong Kong Stadium turf quality by the Hong Kong government.
25/7/13	Paul Chan Mo-po refuses to step down.
22/7/13	Paul Chan Mo-po refuses to admit conflict of interest despite his family owns a land on Northeast New Territories.

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, “Our survey conducted in mid-August shows that the popularity of CE CY Leung continues to hit the bottom. His support rating drops 2 marks to 43.7 marks, approval rate slightly drops 1 percentage point to 25%, both being record lows since he took office as CE. However, his disapproval rate also slightly drops 1 percentage point, so his net popularity stays unchanged at negative 31 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that those aged between 18 and 29 are most critical of CY Leung as CE. As for the SAR Government, compared to a month ago, satisfaction rate goes up by 2 percentage points, while dissatisfaction rate also goes up by 2 percentage points, so its net satisfaction rate stays at negative 23 percentage points. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our ‘Opinion Daily’. Because CY Leung’s support rating has gone below the warning line of 45, it is worth discussing whether he is facing a governance crisis. To facilitate this discussion, abstracts from two articles on this topic written by me are given below. Both articles can be downloaded in full from the POP Site, but no further comments will be provided.”

“The Popularity of Tung Chee-hwa from All Angles” (released on 14/5/2003): “According to our experience, a political figure with less than 50 marks can be said to have fallen into negative popularity, while a score of less than 45 marks can indicate credibility crisis. Using this analysis, Tung has been negatively popular among the general public since August 2002, and in March 2003, he has sunk into a credibility crisis…”

“New Perspectives on Chief Executive Ratings” (released on 12/6/2003): “Concurrent tests showed that a support rating of 55 marks was more or less equivalent to a ‘vote share’ of 45%, 50 marks could be converted to round about 30%, 45 marks to 20%, and 40 marks to 10% to 15%... In late 1990, after the ‘approval rate’ of Margaret Thatcher sank to 25%, she withdrew from the election for the leader of the British Conservative Party, thereby gave up her job as the Prime Minister of UK, a post which she held since 1979. In early 1997, John Major lost his post of Prime Minister to Tony Blair, after his ‘approval rate’ hovered around the level of 30% for a long time. As for former USA President Bill Clinton, his lowest ever ‘approval rate’ within his 8-year terms of office was as high as 37%...”

Future Release (Tentative)

September 3, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Ratings of top 10 cross-strait political figures