HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

(1) Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong has uploaded the full set of video record of the July 1 Rally onto the “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk). People can download the videos from the “July 1 Rally Feature page”, and do their own headcount of the Rally. Video clips at higher resolutions are also available for purchase at production cost. Details available at the feature page.

(2) To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, POP has already released for public examination some time ago via the “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of 50 regular rating surveys of CE CY Leung, as well as the 181 regular rating surveys of former CE Donald Tsang and 239 regular rating surveys of former CE CH Tung, along with related demographics of respondents. POP today releases the raw data of the latest which is the 51st CE rating survey of CY Leung. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data. POP will soon put up a “POP Education Page” to centralize all raw data and educational material as a one-stop service.

POP interviewed 1,008 Hong Kong people between July 7 and 10, 2014 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey shows that the popularity of CE CY Leung has significantly dropped, his latest support rating drops to 42.7 marks, again below the 45 alert level, first time in 2014 and third time since he took office. CE’s net approval rate now stands at negative 38 percentage points. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 55.9 marks, her approval rate 45%, disapproval rate 18%, giving a net popularity of positive 27 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 53.8 marks, approval rate 43%, disapproval rate 20%, and net popularity positive 23 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 46.6 marks, approval rate 26%, disapproval rate 27%, giving a net popularity of negative 1 percentage point. The support ratings and net approval rates of both Carrie Lam and Rimsky Yuen are at record low since they took office, obviously related to the political reform discussions. Carrie Lam, however, is still the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 7 among the 12 Directors have gone down, while 4 have gone up and 1 remained unchanged. Among them, those registered significant changes in net approval rate include Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, down by 21 and 6 percentage points, and up by 9 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Gregory So, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularities, at negative 6, 33 and 37 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with net approval rate at positive 71 percentage points. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, no one falls under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Matthew Cheung, Carrie Lam, John Tsang, Lai Tung-kwok, Anthony Cheung, Tsang Tak-sing, Wong Kam-sing, Rimsky Yuen and Gregory So can be labeled as “mediocre”. That of Ceajer Chan, Paul Tang and Raymond Tam and can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. CY Leung, Paul Chan and Eddie Ng 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 68%. As the support rating of CE CY Leung dropped below the warning line of 45 for the third time, Director of POP, Robert Chung, again reprints the abstracts of two articles written by him before on CE popularity, to discuss the possibility of a governance crisis. The articles can be downloaded in full from the POP Site.

[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 +/-1.7, 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 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.

[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 +/-2.1, 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.
[12] 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:

[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 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.

The latest survey showed that, CE CY Leung scored 42.7 marks, and 23% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 38 percentage points. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 55.9, 53.8 and 46.6 marks, and 45%, 43% and 26% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 27, positive 23 and negative 1 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 6 June, 2014 while this survey was conducted from 7 to 10 July, 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 the first half of July shows that the popularity of CE CY Leung has significantly dropped, his latest support rating drops to 42.7 marks, again below the 45 alert level, first time in 2014 and third time since he took office. CE’s net approval rate now stands at negative 38 percentage points.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 55.9 marks, her approval rate 45%, disapproval rate 18%, giving a net popularity of positive 27 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 53.8 marks, approval rate 43%, disapproval rate 20%, and net popularity positive 23 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 46.6 marks, approval rate 26%, disapproval rate 27%, giving a net popularity of negative 1 percentage point. The support ratings and net approval rates of both Carrie Lam and Rimsky Yuen are at record low since they took office, obviously related to the political reform discussions. Carrie Lam, however, is still the most popular Secretary of Department.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 7 among the 12 Directors have gone down, while 4 have gone up and 1 remained unchanged. Among them, those registered significant changes in net approval rate include Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, down by 21 and 6 percentage points, and up by 9 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Gregory So, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularities, at negative 6, 33 and 37 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with net approval rate at positive 71 percentage points.

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

• July 22, 2014 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Ratings of Top 10 Legislative Councillors