HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

(1) In light of numerous public requests received by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong asking us to conduct surveys on the current situation, many with suggested questions, POP has opened a new page today at “PopCon” (http://popcon.hk) to let people suggest questions for general surveys of the Hong Kong public. Once adopted, these questions will be used in standard POP surveys, and their findings would be released as soon as possible. POP takes this as a community service to discover real public opinion. Up to now 43 proposed questions and 13 email opinions submitted by citizens have been uploaded to the platform. POP hereby expresses our gratitude to them.

(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 all 58 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 59th CE rating survey of CY Leung. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data.

POP interviewed 1,008 Hong Kong people between 31 October and 5 November, 2014 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our survey conducted about one month after the Occupy Movement had started shows that the latest support rating of CE CY Leung has recovered 1.5 marks from its all-time low registered two weeks ago to 40.4 marks. Leung’s net approval rate now stands at negative 37 percentage points, not much different from that two weeks ago. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 56.8 marks, her approval rate 56%, disapproval rate 15%, giving a net popularity of positive 41 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 56.5 marks, approval rate 56%, disapproval rate 9%, and net popularity positive 47 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 48.5 marks, approval rate 35% which is now at his all-time high, disapproval rate 21%, giving a net popularity of positive 14 percentage points. In terms of popularity rating, Carrie Lam has again become the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 5 among the 12 Directors have gone up, while 5 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam and Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man registered significant changes in net approval rates, up by 8 percentage points and down by 8 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularities, at negative 23 and 34 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with net approval rate at positive 66 percentage points. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam, John Tsang and Matthew Cheung fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Ceajer Chan, Anthony Cheung, Wong Kam-sing, Lai Tung-kwok, Rimsky Yuen, Gregory So, Tsang Tak-sing, Raymond Tam and Eddie Ng can be labeled as “mediocre”. That of 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 65%. As the support rating of CE CY Leung continues to stand below the warning line of 45 again, 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 +/-1.8, 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 +/-2.3, 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 40.4 marks, and 24% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 37 percentage points. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 56.8, 56.5 and 48.5 marks, and 56%, 56% and 35% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 41, positive 47 and positive 14 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 6 to 9 October, 2014 while this survey was conducted from 31 October to 5 November, 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 about one month after the Occupy Movement had started shows that the latest support rating of CE CY Leung has recovered 1.5 marks from its all-time low registered two weeks ago to 40.4 marks. Leung’s net approval rate now stands at negative 37 percentage points, not much different from that two weeks ago.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 56.8 marks, her approval rate 56%, disapproval rate 15%, giving a net popularity of positive 41 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 56.5 marks, approval rate 56%, disapproval rate 9%, and net popularity positive 47 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 48.5 marks, approval rate 35% which is now at his all-time high, disapproval rate 21%, giving a net popularity of positive 14 percentage points. In terms of popularity rating, Carrie Lam has again become the most popular Secretary of Department.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 5 among the 12 Directors have gone up, while 5 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam and Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man registered significant changes in net approval rates, up by 8 percentage points and down by 8 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan registered negative popularities, at negative 23 and 34 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with net approval rate at positive 66 percentage points.

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

• November 18, 2014 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: People’s most familiar political figures