HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

(1) POP will conduct instant survey on CE’s policy address

As in previous years, Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong will conduct an instant survey after the Chief Executive delivers his policy address tomorrow (January 15, 2014). Results will be announced the following day (January 16), after which POP will conduct follow-up surveys which would be released in due course.

(2)“New Year Rally” video record for public consumption

POP has uploaded the full set of video record of the New Year Rally to the “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk) today. Public are welcomed to download the video record from the “New Year Rally Feature page”, and do their own headcount of the Rally. POP also provides all the video clips in higher resolution, available for purchase at production cost, for details, please refer to the note inside the page.

POP interviewed 1,018 Hong Kong people between January 2 and 6, 2014 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey shows that the support rating of CE CY Leung continues to recover somewhat, as his latest rating stands at 45.6 marks and net popularity at negative 31 percentage points, both being low figures. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 62.0 marks, her approval rate 60%, disapproval rate 9%, giving a net popularity of positive 51 percentage points. As for FS John Tsang, his latest support rating is 57.7 marks, approval rate 51%, disapproval rate 12%, and net popularity positive 39 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 51.3 marks, approval rate 29%, disapproval rate 17%, giving a net popularity of positive 12 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 10 among the 12 Directors have gone up, 1 remained unchanged and 1 has gone down. Among them, only those of Secretary for Education Eddie Ng, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam registered significant changes in net approval rate. Among all the Directors, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularities, at negative 22 and 37 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with net approval rate at positive 77 percentage points. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam and John Tsang now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Matthew Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok, Anthony Cheung, Wong Kam-sing, Raymond Tam, Tsang Tak-sing, Gregory So and Eddie Ng can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Ceajer Chan, Rimsky Yuen and Paul Tang can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. CY Leung and Paul Chan fall 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 errors of rating figures and net approval rates need another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 67%.

[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] The figures shown in the “latest change” column of this press release have been tested after “rim weighted” data collected in this and last survey. The structural effect of using the new weighting method is small, around -4% to +2% for percentage figures, and around 0.0 to +0.7 for rating figures, while statistical significance tests are not affected.

[8] Based on 95% confidence interval.

[9] 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.
[10] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level under the same weighting method, 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.

[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 +/-6% 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 under the same weighting method, 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 under the same weighting method, 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] Based on the figures of November survey, in one decimal place, the respective net approval rates of Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung and Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok were 22.1 and 21.9 percentage points. Thus, they were ranked fourth and fifth respectively at that time.
[18] Based on the figures of latest survey, in one decimal place, the respective net approval rates of Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam and Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang are 18.2 and 18.0 percentage points. Thus, they are ranked sixth and third seventh this time.

The latest survey showed that, CE CY Leung scored 45.6 marks, and 27% 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 62.0, 57.7 and 51.3 marks, and 60%, 51% and 29% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 51, 39 and 12 percentage points respectively.

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 December, 2013 while this survey was conducted from 2 to 6 January, 2014. 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 in early January shows that the support rating of CE CY Leung continues to recover somewhat, as his latest rating stands at 45.6 marks and net popularity at negative 31 percentage points, both being low figures.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 62.0 marks, her approval rate 60%, disapproval rate 9%, giving a net popularity of positive 51 percentage points. As for FS John Tsang, his latest support rating is 57.7 marks, approval rate 51%, disapproval rate 12%, and net popularity positive 39 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 51.3 marks, approval rate 29%, disapproval rate 17%, giving a net popularity of positive 12 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 10 among the 12 Directors have gone up, 1 remained unchanged and 1 has gone down. Among them, only those of Secretary for Education Eddie Ng, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam registered significant changes in net approval rate. Among all the Directors, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularities, at negative 22 and 37 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with net approval rate at positive 77 percentage points.

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

[19] In one decimal place, the respective approval rates of Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam Chi-yuen and Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing are 34.2% and 34.1%.

• January 16, 2014 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Policy Address Instant Poll

• January 21, 2014 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Policy Address First Follow-up Survey