HKU POP SITE releases the latest ratings of the Top 10 Legislative CouncillorsBack

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 ratings of the top 10 Legislative Councillors. According to our general practice, all figures have been weighted according to the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population obtained from the 2001 Population Census, and 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 recognition rates not reaching top 10 in either stage of survey are not available.
[ ] Number in square brackets indicates rankings.

The latest survey conducted in early August showed that Rita Fan and Selina Chow were the most popularly supported councillors, attaining 63.7 and 59.5 marks respectively. James Tien, Lee Cheuk-yan and Lee Wing-tat followed behind, with 54.9, 53.6 and 52.0 marks correspondingly. Emily Lau, Martin Lee and Jasper Tsang ranked 6th to 8th, scoring 49.1, 48.6 and 47.7 marks respectively. The subsequent ranks fell to Albert Cheng and Leung Kwok-hung who scored 43.0 and 32.1 marks. The mean score obtained by the top 5 councillors was 56.7 marks, while that for the top 10 was 50.4 marks.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Among the ten best known Legco members, Rita Fan was the most popularly supported councillor for the third consecutive time. Her rating was much higher than that of Selina Chow in the second place, whose rating was in turn much higher than that of James Tien in the third place. Audrey Eu, who has been in the first or second place over the last two years, has dropped out of the list because of her relatively low recognition rate in the final stage of the survey. This is somewhat similar to Chan Yuen-han recently, and Elsie Tu quite some time ago. In terms of recognition rate, Lee Wing-tat has apparently overshadowed Audrey Eu, and made his way to the middle of the popularity list, for the first time since 1999. Among all ten Legco members on the list, only James Tien registered an increase in his popularity rating. Lee Wing-tat did not have a previous score to be compared, while all others registered a drop in popularity scores. Martin Lee, Leung Kwok-hung and Albert Cheng all registered drops which were statistically significant. It should be noted, however, that our 'Top 10 Legislative Councillors' includes only those who are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other 50 councillors may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they were not the most well-known councillors, they have not been included in our 'Top 10' list."

The research design of our "Top 10 Legislative Councillors" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top councillors listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained the highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in late July (July 25-29). In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 legislators whom they knew best. Martin Lee, Leung Kwok-hung, Rita Fan, Emily Lau and James To were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. Those 12 who were named most frequently then entered into the second stage rating survey. During the second stage rating survey conducted in early August, respondents were asked to rate each legislator in turn using a 0-100 scale. 0 indicates absolutely no support, 100 indicates absolute support, and 50 means half-half. After calculation, the bottom 2 legislators in terms of recognition rate were dropped, leaving behind the top 10. For easy reference, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since the year 1998.

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 August 23, 2005, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest figures of people's appraisal of the professionalism of the local news media will be released.

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.