HKU POP SITE releases the latest figures of the popularity of CE Tung Chee-hwa and people's appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR GovernmentBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest figures of the popularity of CE Tung Chee-hwa, and people's appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR Government. POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly. According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be July 29, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest results of the 4 subjective social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity" and "stability", a series of questions related to the rule of law, as well as people's appraisal of the performance of the members of the Legislative Council in general will be released.

The latest survey of POP was conducted between July 14 and 16, 2003, which successfully interviewed 1,073 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above, by a random telephone survey. Results showed that the latest rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa was 38.1 marks, representing an increase of 2.7 marks from the previous survey. If a general election of the Chief Executive were to be held the following day, 72% of the respondents would not vote for Tung Chee-hwa, only 12% would support him. Besides, 63% were dissatisfied with Tung's policy direction, 9% were satisfied. As for people's appraisal of the performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest findings revealed that 68% were dissatisfied, whereas 11% were satisfied. All negative percentages were at their record high. Because these indicators follow different cycles, their readings since June are summarized as follows:

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following analysis: "The latest figures on the popularity of the CE and the SARG have not yet reflected the effects of two principal officials' resignation, CE's duty visit to Beijing, and his open remarks before and after that trip. The mass demonstration on July 1 has pushed all dissatisfaction figures to their record high. CE's rating has rebounded 3 points after that, but he is still in a critical condition."

All new polls carried in the POP Site today are random telephone surveys conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the latest survey is 1,073 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of the rating of CE Tung Chee-hwa is plus/minus 1.4 marks, while that of all percentages is less than plus/minus 3 percentage points. The meaning of "95% confidence level" is 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. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.