HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, The Public Opinion Programme (POP) of The University of Hong Kong has already released for public examination some time ago via the “HKU POP Site” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the raw data of all 69 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 70th CE rating survey of CY Leung. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data.

POP interviewed 1,018 Hong Kong people between 31 March to 9 April, 2015 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows CE CY Leung’s overall popularity has increased from early March. His net popularity has gone up significantly by 6 percentage points to negative 33 percentage points, while his support rating has increased to 43.3 marks, but still below the warning line of 45. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 56.2 marks, her approval rate 49%, disapproval rate 15%, giving a net popularity of positive 34 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 60.2 marks, approval rate 59%, disapproval rate 12%, and net popularity positive 47 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 48.1 marks, approval rate 30%, disapproval rate 26%, giving a net popularity of positive 4 percentage points. The support ratings and net popularities of the three secretaries have gone up since last survey in early March. John Tsang continues to be the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 8 among the 12 Directors have gone up, while 2 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, only Secretary for Development Paul Chan registers significant change in his net approval rate, down by 7 percentages points. Among all the Directors, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan register negative popularities, at negative 33 and 34 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with a net approval rate of positive 75 percentage points. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, John Tsang falls under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Carrie Lam, Matthew Cheung, Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok, Wong Kam-sing, Gregory So, Tsang Tak-sing, Rimsky Yuen, Raymond Tam and Eddie Ng can be labeled as “mediocre”. That of Ceajer Chan 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 68%. 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.

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 March, 2015 while this survey was conducted from 31 March to 9 April, 2015. 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 shows CE CY Leung’s overall popularity has increased from early March. His net popularity has gone up significantly by 6 percentage points to negative 33 percentage points, while his support rating has increased to 43.3 marks, but still below the warning line of 45.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 56.2 marks, her approval rate 49%, disapproval rate 15%, giving a net popularity of positive 34 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 60.2 marks, approval rate 59%, disapproval rate 12%, and net popularity positive 47 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 48.1 marks, approval rate 30%, disapproval rate 26%, giving a net popularity of positive 4 percentage points. The support ratings and net popularities of the three secretaries have gone up since last survey in early March. John Tsang continues to be the most popular Secretary of Department.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rates of 8 among the 12 Directors have gone up, while 2 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, only Secretary for Development Paul Chan registers significant change in his net approval rate, down by 7 percentages points. Among all the Directors, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan register negative popularities, at negative 33 and 34 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with a net approval rate of positive 75 percentage points.

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

• April 21, 2015 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Media Performance