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Press Release on May 7, 2019

| Detailed Findings (Rating of Top Ten Political Groups) |

| Detailed Findings (Public Sentiment Index Feature Page) |

Special Announcements

1. The Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (HKPORI) has operated officially since May 4, 2019, after appointing its first part-time staff. HKPORI will carry on the spirit of May Fourth Movement and the mission of the Public Opinion Programme at The University of Hong Kong (HKUPOP) to serve the society with integrity and quality, as a civil society conscientious enterprise.

2. Under HKPORI will be a research program called Hong Kong Public Opinion Program (HKPOP) which will continue to conduct public opinion surveys, but will require public funding before releasing them. This means that self-funding tracking surveys so far conducted and released by HKUPOP, covering about 25 broad topics and almost 250 opinion questions, like those on the popularity of the Chief Executive, the government, the principal officials, the best commercial organizations, people’s views on June Fourth, ethnic identity, and so on may not be seen again after July this year. The release of ratings of the top 10 political groups by HKUPOP today is the final release of the series, whether it will appear again or not in the future is uncertain. For public releases on the establishment of HKPOP, please refer to our website: https://hkupop.pori.hk/english/release/release1583_pr.html。

3. Up to this date, HKPOP has received a total donation of HK$21,588 and we are extremely grateful for citizens’ support. We sincerely invite more public donations to be made to the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) account number 640-116976-838 managed by the Public Policy Research Platform Ltd for HKPORI before we set up our own bank account. Donors should send a notification message to our email account at [email protected], through which we will issue an official receipt after confirmation of the deposit. Please follow us through the following social media accounts for our latest update:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HKPublicOpinionProgram
Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/hkporihkpop (HKPOP)
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/h.k.p.o.p

Abstract

HKUPOP conducted a survey on the popularity of political groups by random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers in April in two stages. Our survey shows that compared to six months ago, in terms of familiarity, all ten political groups have managed to maintain their places in the “top 10” list. In terms of absolute ratings, the ratings of Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), Liberal Party, New People’s Party and Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) have gone down significantly. The rating of DAB is at record low since the first record in 1992 while that of Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood (ADPL) has not changed beyond sampling error, but hits its record low again since the first record in 1991. In terms of relative rankings, Civic Party goes up one position to top the list, Democratic Party goes up two positions to rank second, FTU goes down two positions to rank third, Liberal Party goes down one position to rank fourth, Labour Party remains in the same position and ranks fifth, ADPL goes up two positions to rank sixth, New People’s Party remains in the same position and ranks seventh, DAB goes down two positions to rank eighth, League of Social Democrats and People Power remain in the ninth and tenth positions. The effective response rate of the rating survey is 66.1%. The maximum sampling error of ratings is +/-2.6 at 95% confidence level.

As for the Public Sentiment Index (PSI), the latest PSI stands at 92.3, down by 3.1 points from mid-April. This time among the two component scores of PSI, the Government Appraisal (GA) Score that reflects people’s appraisal of society’s governance goes up by 0.9 points to 91.6, whereas the Society Appraisal (SA) Score that reflects people’s appraisal of the social environment decreases by 6.4 points to 87.4.

Ratings of the Top 10 Political Groups

Contact Information

[1] Starting from April 2018, HKUPOP revised the landline and mobile sample ratio to 2 to 1. The figures released today by HKUPOP have already incorporated landline and mobile samples.

[2] Before September 2017, “overall response rate” was used to report surveys’ contact information. Starting from September 2017, “effective response rate” was used. In July 2018, HKUPOP further revised the calculation of effective response rate. Thus, the response rates before and after the change cannot be directly compared.

[3] All error figures in this release are calculated at 95% confidence level. “95% confidence level” means that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times with different random samples, we would expect 95 times having the population parameter within the respective error margins calculated. Because of sampling errors, when quoting percentages, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, whereas one decimal place can be used when quoting rating figures.

[4] In the past, the mobile sample would be rim-weighted according to the basic Public Sentiment Index (PSI) figures collected in the landline sample. In July 2018, HKUPOP further refined the weighting method. The landline sample and the mobile sample would no longer be processed separately. The mobile sample would also no longer be adjusted using the basic PSI figures collected in the landline sample. The overall effect is that the importance of the mobile sample would be increased.

Latest Figures

In the naming survey conducted from April 8 to 11, respondents could name, unprompted, up to 10 political groups which they knew best. Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), Democratic Party, Civic Party, Liberal Party and Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) were the top 5 political groups mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. Those 12 which were named most frequently then entered the rating survey. In the rating survey conducted from April 23 to 25, respondents were asked to rate individual political groups using a 0-100 scale, where 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom 2 political groups in terms of recognition rate were dropped; the remaining 10 were then ranked according to their support ratings to become the top 10 political groups. It should be noted that because political groups are not yet legal entities in Hong Kong, such definitions are rather vague, and so-called political groups are constantly evolving. As a result, strange names may appear in the list of groups mentioned by respondents in the naming survey. In order to avoid personal bias, our research team will eliminate groups which fall outside the popular definition only after the naming survey. Recent ratings of the top 10 political groups are summarized below, in descending order of support ratings ^[5]:

[5] If the rounded figures are the same, numbers after the decimal point will be considered.

[6] These questions only use sub-samples of the surveys concerned.

[7] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful, and different weighting methods could have been applied in different surveys.

[8] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level because of a change in the weighting method. If the previous weighting method was used, the changes would not have gone beyond the sampling errors.

[9] Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 10 in the rating survey are not counted.

The latest survey showed that Civic Party was the most popularly supported political group attaining 46.6 marks. Democratic Party, Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), Liberal Party, Labour Party and Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood (ADPL) ranked the 2nd to 6th with 42.2, 42.2, 41.9, 41.3 and 40.7 marks correspondingly. The 7th to 10th ranks went to New People’s Party, Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), League of Social Democrats (LSD) and People Power which attained 38.9, 38.7, 38.1 and 37.7 marks respectively. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political groups was 42.8 marks, while that for the top 10 was 40.8 marks. For this latest survey, Demosistō and Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) obtained support ratings of 38.2 and 35.1 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past four surveys are tabulated as follows:

[10] The average rating over the past four surveys.

[11] First determined by the number of times on top 10, and then the average ratings. If the rounded figures are the same, numbers after the decimal point will be considered.

The overall rankings in the past four surveys showed that eight political groups have been on the list for four times. They are Civic Party at the top rank achieving an average rating of 46.8 marks, Liberal Party, Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), Democratic Party, New People’s Party, Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), League of Social Democrats (LSD) and People Power which ranked the 2nd to 8th and attained 44.2, 44.1, 43.8, 42.2, 41.4, 38.2 and 36.1 marks correspondingly. Labour Party and Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood (ADPL) have been on the list for three times and ranked the 9th to 10th with 43.4 and 42.2 marks correspondingly. Youngspiration and Civic Passion have been on the list once and ranked the 11th to 12th with 28.5 and 28.2 marks correspondingly.

Opinion Daily

In 2007, HKUPOP started collaborating with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to HKUPOP a record of significant events of that day according to the research method designed by HKUPOP. These daily entries would then be uploaded to “Opinion Daily” after they are verified by HKUPOP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from 2 to 4 October, 2018 while this survey was conducted from 23 to 25 April, 2019. 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.

Public Sentiment Index

Background

The Public Sentiment Index (PSI) compiled by HKUPOP aims at quantifying Hong Kong people’s sentiments, in order to explain and predict the likelihood of collective behaviour. PSI comprises 2 components: one being Government Appraisal (GA) Score and the other being Society Appraisal (SA) Score. GA refers to people’s appraisal of society’s governance while SA refers to people’s appraisal of the social environment. Both GA and SA scores are compiled from a respective of 4 and 6 opinion survey figures. All PSI, GA and SA scores range between 0 to 200, with 100 meaning normal, the grading reference of the scores are shown below. For methodological detailed please refer to the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk.

At the end of June 2012, before the 15th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong, HKUPOP officially released a PSI analysis with figures dating back to 1992, spanning over 20 years. Moreover, the frequency of the study was set at twice a month. Currently, the cut-off dates of all PSI analyses are set at the Sundays proceeding every 15th and last day of month. The first analysis of each month would be released through the HKU POP Site at the Thursday following the cut-off date, while the second analysis would be released at the first Tuesday of the following month through the HKU POP Site and press release.

Latest Figures of PSI

The PSI released by HKUPOP today shows that as of April 28, 2019, the latest Public Sentiment Index (PSI) is 92.3, down 3.1 from early April. As for the Government Appraisal (GA) and Society Appraisal (SA), the scores are 91.6 and 87.4. The former went up by 0.9 while the later went down by 6.4. The chart of PSI, GA and SA are shown below:

Recent values of PSI, GA, SA and 10 fundamental figures are tabulated as follows:

[12] HKUPOP will adopt the latest published figures when there are no respective updates.

[13] The original figure was mistaken, it is hereby corrected.

As for the meaning of the score values, please refer to the following:

The latest PSI of 92.3 can be considered as among the worst 30% across the past 20 years or so, while the GA and SA scores of 91.6 and 87.4 can be considered as among the worst 29% and 20% respectively.

Commentary

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

The latest survey of the top 10 political groups shows that compared to six months ago, in terms of familiarity, all ten political groups have managed to maintain their places in the “top 10” list. In terms of absolute ratings, the ratings of Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), Liberal Party, New People’s Party and Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) have gone down significantly. The rating of DAB is at record low since the first record in 1992 while that of Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood (ADPL) has not changed beyond sampling error, but hits its record low again since the first record in 1991. In terms of relative rankings, Civic Party goes up one position to top the list, Democratic Party goes up two positions to rank second, FTU goes down two positions to rank third, Liberal Party goes down one position to rank fourth, Labour Party remains in the same position and ranks fifth, ADPL goes up two positions to rank sixth, New People’s Party remains in the same position and ranks seventh, DAB goes down two positions to rank eighth, League of Social Democrats and People Power remain in the ninth and tenth positions. It should be noted however that our list of “top 10” only includes political groups which are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other political groups may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are not the most well-known political groups, they do not appear on the “top 10” list by design.

As for the Public Sentiment Index (PSI), the latest PSI stands at 92.3, down by 3.1 points from mid-April. This time among the two component scores of PSI, the Government Appraisal (GA) Score that reflects people’s appraisal of society’s governance goes up by 0.9 points to 91.6, whereas the Society Appraisal (SA) Score that reflects people’s appraisal of the social environment decreases by 6.4 points to 87.4. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our “Opinion Daily”.

Future Release (Tentative)

May 14, 2019 (Tuesday) 12pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and Principal Officials

Reference Materials on Survey on PSI Please refer to the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk. Online resource: “PSI” methodological notes (Chinese Only) Online resource: PSI scores and their percentiles Online chart: PSI (per month) (1992-2019) Online chart: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2019) Online table: PSI (per release) (2012 – 2019) Online table: PSI (per month) (1992-2019) Online table: PSI (half-yearly average) (1992-2019)