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Press Release on April 12, 2016

| Detailed Findings (Rating of Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying) | Detailed Findings (Popularity of Principal Officials) |

Special Announcement

To facilitate academic study and rational discussion, Public Opinion Programme (POP) at 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 94 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 95th CE rating survey of CY Leung. Please follow normal academic standards when using or citing such data.

Abstract

POP interviewed 1,000 Hong Kong people between 5 and 7 April, 2016 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey conducted in early April shows that CE CY Leung’s popularity figures have slightly improved compared to two weeks ago. His support rating now stands at 41.6 marks, up 1.8 marks from last survey, but still below the warning line of 45. His latest approval rate is 25%, disapproval rate 57%, giving a net popularity of negative 32 percentage points, significantly up 8 percentage points from last survey. Since the luggage incident of CY’s daughter Leung Chung-yan was first reported by media on April 7, or the last day of this survey, how it will affect the popularity of CE will be revealed in our next survey. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 55.4 marks. Her approval rate is 51%, disapproval rate 21%, giving a net popularity of positive 30 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 63.4 marks, approval rate 70%, disapproval rate 7%, thus a net popularity of positive 64 percentage points, which is his record high since he became FS in 2007. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 48.3 marks, approval rate 34%, disapproval rate 28%, giving a net popularity of positive 6 percentage points. In terms of popularity rating and approval rate, 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 13 Directors have gone up, while 3 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 8 percentage points. Among all the Directors, only Lau Kong-wah, Paul Chan and Eddie Ng register negative popularities, at negative 27, negative 32 and negative 44 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with a net approval rate of positive 71 percentage points. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man and John Tsang fall under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam falls under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Matthew Cheung, Anthony Cheung, Lai Tung-kwok, Rimsky Yuen, Wong Kam-sing, Raymond Tam, Gregory So and Lau Kong-wah can be labeled as “mediocre”. Ceajer Chan, Nicholas Yang and Clement Cheung can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. Eddie Ng, CY Leung and Paul Chan fall into the category of “depressing” performer, while no one falls into that of “disastrous”. The maximum sampling error 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, Research Manager of POP, Frank Lee, reprints the abstracts of two articles written by Director of POP, Robert Chung, before on CE popularity, to discuss the possibility of a governance crisis. The articles can be downloaded in full from the POP Site.

Points to note:

[1] The address of the “HKU POP SITE” is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.

[2] The sample size of this survey is 1,000 successful interviews, not 1,000 x 68.3% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.

[3] “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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state “sampling error of rating not more than +/-2.1, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4%, and sampling error of net values not more than +/-7% at 95% confidence level”.

[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey(s) and the rounding procedures in processing the data, the figures cannot be too precise, and the totals may not be completely accurate. Therefore, when quoting percentages of the survey(s), journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used.

[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses “computerized random telephone survey” to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

Latest Figures

POP today releases the latest popularity figures of CE CY Leung and various Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system. From 2014, POP enhanced the previous simple weighting method based on age and gender distribution to “rim weighting” based on age, gender and education (highest level attended) distribution. The latest figures released today have been rim-weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2015 year-end and the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution collected in the 2011 Census. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

[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.

As different questions involve different sub-samples, the sampling errors will vary accordingly. The table below briefly shows the relationship between sample size and maximum sampling errors for the readers to capture the corresponding changes:

[7] Based on 95% confidence interval.

Recent popularity figures of CE CY Leung are summarized as follows:

Date of survey	18-21/1/16	1-4/2/16	17-19/2/16	7-10/3/16	17-22/3/16	5-7/4/16	Latest change
Sample base	1,010	1,014	1,001	1,000	1,000	1,000	--
Overall response rate	67.2%	66.4%	66.4%	67.4%	68.1%	68.3%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error [8]	--
Rating of CE CY Leung	38.7	39.5	39.8	37.7[9]	39.8[9]	41.6+/-1.9	+1.8
Vote of confidence in CE CY Leung	23%[9]	21%	23%	23%	23%	25+/-3%	+2%
Vote of no confidence in CE CY Leung	62%[9]	61%	61%	63%	62%	57+/-3%	-5%[9]
Net approval rate	-39%[9]	-39%	-38%	-40%	-40%	-32+/-5%	+8%[9]

[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 +/-1.9, 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.

Recent popularity figures of the three Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system are summarized below:

Date of survey	3-7/12/15	4-6/1/16	1-4/2/16	24/2/16 [11]	7-10/3/16	5-7/4/16	Latest change
Sample base[10]	572-653	551-618	576-651	528	642-708	650-735	--
Overall response rate	65.4%	63.9%	66.4%	63.6%	67.4%	68.3%	--
Latest finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding & error [12]	--
Rating of CS Carrie Lam	59.0[13]	52.1[13]	52.7	--	54.2	55.4+/-2.1	+1.2
Vote of confidence in CS Carrie Lam	52%	44%[13]	45%	--	50%[13]	51+/-4%	+1%
Vote of no confidence in CS Carrie Lam	15%	22%[13]	24%	--	21%	21+/-3%	--
Net approval rate	37%	22%[13]	20%	--	29%[13]	30+/-6%	+1%
Rating of FS John Tsang	62.7	59.3[13]	62.3[13]	62.2	63.4	63.4+/-1.4	--
Vote of confidence in FS John Tsang	63%	57%[13]	59%	58%	69%[13]	70+/-3%	+1%
Vote of no confidence in FS John Tsang	10%	9%	8%	10%	8%	7+/-2%	-1%
Net approval rate	53%	48%	51%	48%	60%[13]	64+/-4%	+4%
Rating of SJ Rimsky Yuen	47.1	45.0[13]	44.9	--	46.5	48.3+/-2.1	+1.8
Vote of confidence in SJ Rimsky Yuen	28%[13]	27%	26%	--	34%[13]	34+/-4%	--
Vote of no confidence in SJ Rimsky Yuen	27%	28%	31%	--	27%	28+/-4%	+1%
Net approval rate	1%	-1%	-5%	--	7%[13]	6+/-6%	-1%

[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] The survey conducted on 24/2/2016 was the Budget instant survey and only asked rating of FS as well as his vote of confidence.

[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 in early March, in one decimal place, the respective net approval rates of Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung and Secretary for the Civil Service Clement Cheung are 14.5 and 14.2 percentage points. Thus, they are ranked fourth and fifth at that time.

[18] Based on the figures in the latest survey, in one decimal place, the respective net approval rates of Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam are 7.1 and 6.6 percentage points. Thus, they are ranked seventh and eighth this time.

The latest survey showed that, CE CY Leung scored 41.6 marks, and 25% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 32 percentage points. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 55.4, 63.4 and 48.3 marks, and 51%, 70% and 34% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 30, positive 64 and positive 6 percentage points respectively.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, according to the net approval rates, results revealed that the top position goes to Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man, attaining positive 71 percentage points. The 2nd and 3rd places belong to Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan and Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung with net approval rates of positive 27 and positive 23 percentage points respectively. Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for the Civil Service Clement Cheung, Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for Innovation and Technology Nicholas Yang, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah, Secretary for Development Paul Chan and Secretary for Education Eddie Ng ranked 4th to 13th, their corresponding net approval rates are positive 17, positive 14, positive 11, positive 7, positive 7, positive 1, 0, negative 27, negative 32 and negative 44 percentage points. In other words, only Ko Wing-man scored a net approval rate of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux.

Opinion Daily

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 7 to 10 March, 2016 while this survey was conducted from 5 to 7 April, 2016. 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.

5/4/16	70% of applicants do not attend the De Novo flat-selection process.
1/4/16	All channels of Asia Television Limited cease broadcasting.
29/3/16	MTR fare increases by 2.7% this year.
22/3/16	A series of terror attacks hit Brussels, the Belgian capital.
17/3/16	Li Ka-shing, Chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings and Cheung Kong Property, comments on Hong Kong’s situation after the earnings announcements.
16/3/16	Premier Li Keqiang meets the press after the close of the National People’s Congress.
13/3/16	Moody’s downgrades Hong Kong’s long-term debt outlook from “stable” to “negative”.
11/3/16	The $19.6 billion extra funding request for the express rail link is passed by a show of hands by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council.

Commentary

Note: The following commentary was written by Research Manager of POP, Frank Lee.

Our latest survey conducted in early April shows that CE CY Leung’s popularity figures have slightly improved compared to two weeks ago. His support rating now stands at 41.6 marks, up 1.8 marks from last survey, but still below the warning line of 45. His latest approval rate is 25%, disapproval rate 57%, giving a net popularity of negative 32 percentage points, significantly up 8 percentage points from last survey. Since the luggage incident of CY’s daughter Leung Chung-yan was first reported by media on April 7, or the last day of this survey, how it will affect the popularity of CE will be revealed in our next survey.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 55.4 marks. Her approval rate is 51%, disapproval rate 21%, giving a net popularity of positive 30 percentage points. The latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 63.4 marks, approval rate 70%, disapproval rate 7%, thus a net popularity of positive 64 percentage points, which is his record high since he became FS in 2007. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 48.3 marks, approval rate 34%, disapproval rate 28%, giving a net popularity of positive 6 percentage points. In terms of popularity rating and approval rate, 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 13 Directors have gone up, while 3 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 8 percentage points. Among all the Directors, only Lau Kong-wah, Paul Chan and Eddie Ng register negative popularities, at negative 27, negative 32 and negative 44 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director, with a net approval rate of positive 71 percentage points.

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

“Ideal”: those with approval rates of over 66%; ranked by their approval rates shown inside brackets

Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man (79%); FS John Tsang Chun-wah (70%)

“Successful”: those with approval rates of over 50%; ranked by their approval rates shown inside brackets

CS Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (51%)

“Mediocre”: those not belonging to other 5 types; ranked by their approval rates shown inside brackets

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung (45%); Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung Bing-leung (39%) [19]; Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok (39%)[19]; SJ Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung (34%); Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing (32%)[20]; Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam Chi-yuen (32%)[20]; Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So Kam-leung (30%); Secretary for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah (21%)

“Inconspicuous”: those with recognition rates of less than 50%; ranked by their approval rates; the first figure inside bracket is approval rate while the second figure is recognition rate

Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan Ka-keung (38%, 50%)[21]; Secretary for Innovation and Technology Nicholas Yang Wei-hsiung (24%, 47%); Secretary for the Civil Service Clement Cheung Wan-ching (23%, 31%)

“Depressing”: those with disapproval rates of over 50%; ranked by their disapproval rates shown inside brackets

Secretary for Education Eddie Ng Hak-kim (61%); CE Leung Chun-ying (57%); Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po (53%)

“Disastrous”: those with disapproval rates of over 66%; ranked by their disapproval rates shown inside brackets

[19] In one decimal place, the respective approval rates of Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung Bing-leung and Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok are 39.3% and 39.1%.

[20] In one decimal place, the respective approval rates of Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam Chi-yuen are 32.4% and 31.7%.

[21] In one decimal place, the recognition rate of Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan Ka-keung is 49.6%. Thus he can be labeled as “inconspicuous”.

Since the support rating of CE CY Leung continues to stand below the warning line of 45, I reprint again the abstracts of two articles written by Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, before on CE popularity for public reference, to discuss the possibility of a governance crisis. The articles can be downloaded in full from the POP Site.

“The Popularity of Tung Chee-hwa from All Angles” (released on 14/5/2003): “According to our experience, a political figure with less than 50 marks can be said to have fallen into negative popularity, while a score of less than 45 marks can indicate credibility crisis. Using this analysis, Tung has been negatively popular among the general public since August 2002, and in March 2003, he has sunk into a credibility crisis…”

“New Perspectives on Chief Executive Ratings” (released on 12/6/2003): “Concurrent tests showed that a support rating of 55 marks was more or less equivalent to a ‘vote share’ of 45%, 50 marks could be converted to round about 30%, 45 marks to 20%, and 40 marks to 10% to 15%... In late 1990, after the ‘approval rate’ of Margaret Thatcher sank to 25%, she withdrew from the election for the leader of the British Conservative Party, thereby gave up her job as the Prime Minister of UK, a post which she held since 1979. In early 1997, John Major lost his post of Prime Minister to Tony Blair, after his ‘approval rate’ hovered around the level of 30% for a long time. As for former USA President Bill Clinton, his lowest ever ‘approval rate’ within his 8-year terms of office was as high as 37%...”

Future Release (Tentative)

• April 19, 2016 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Media Performance

No. of hits since Jun 3, 2000: 81,290,127

No. of hits since Jan 1, 2018: 428,179

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Everything carried in this website 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 and messages posted at the opinion platforms. Any responsibility, legal and otherwise, arising from any such item shall vest entirely with its author. The intellectual property of all information contained in this website, including questionnaire design and research reports, originally belongs to HKU POP unless specified otherwise. HKU POP opens their copyright to the world via this website, but would request all users to acknowledge their source properly.

HKU POP all rights reserved.

Last update :  26/6/2019