HKU POP SITE releases the latest figures on the popularity of non-official members of the Executive CouncilBack

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 popularity figures of non-official members of the Executive Council. As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population obtained from the 2001 Population Census. Recent figures are summarized as follows:

* "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.
** Ratings with less than 50% recognition rates are taken as not representative.
@ Erratum: The label of error margins in the original release was mis-typed

The survey conducted in early April revealed that, regarding people's ratings of the non-official members of the Executive Council, Selina Chow scored 58.9 marks, and leading with quite a margin from the rest. The ratings of Cheng Yiu-tong, Jasper Tsang and Leung Chun-ying were 47.2, 46.3 and 46.3 marks correspondingly, while those of Liao Cheung-sing, Bernard C Chan and Laura M Cha were not taken as representative because of their less-than-50% recognition rates. As for the sit-in member, the Head of Central Policy Unit Lau Siu-kai scored 50.4 marks.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Since July 2003, we have been tracking the popularity of all the Executive Council members on an individual basis, including all principal officials, non-official and sit-in members. After repeated surveys, we have found that non-official members generally have low recognition rates but varied support ratings. In our latest survey, for example, out of the 7 non-official members, 3 did not reach our benchmark recognition rate of 50%, another 3 failed to reach the popularity benchmark of 50. Only Selina Chow enjoyed good popularity. For the sit-in members, Lam Woon-kwong used to enjoy fairly good rating, but he has already resigned. Lau Siu-kai's popularity is only mediocre. Generally speaking, unlike the principal officials, non-official and sit-in members have apparently not benefited from the change of Chief Executive."

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. The date and time of our next release of regular survey findings will be April 19, 2005, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest findings on the subjective freedom indicators, people's trust in the HKSAR and Beijing Central Governments, their confidence in Hong Kong's future, China's future and "one country, two systems" will be released. Then, on April 21, 2005, Thursday, at 2 pm, we will release the latest popularity figures of Acting Chief Executive Donald Tsang and Financial Secretary Henry Tang, as well as results of the Budget follow-up survey.

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.