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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Our latest survey shows that the popularity of CE Donald Tsang has increased slightly compared to half a month ago, but the increase becomes more significant when compared to the figures registered one month ago. Likewise, people's satisfaction with the SAR government has also increased over the last month. According to the information provided in the "Opinion Daily" feature page of our 'POP Site', major events over the past month include CE's duty visit to Beijing, his presentation of the Report on the Economic Summit on China's 11th Five-Year Plan and the Development of Hong Kong, government's taking new measures on obstetric services and immigration control, government's announcement of conservation policies in heritage, and Hang Seng Index reaching historical high. These events may all help to lift the popularity of the CE and the government, but readers are free to arrive at their own conclusions using information carried in our "Opinion Daily"."
News about POP
POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday afternoon via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next 7 days. According to schedule, our next release of regular survey findings will be February 6, 2007, Tuesday, between 1pm to 2pm, when the latest ratings of the top 10 Legislative Councillors will be released.
Our general practice is to answer all questions on the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site as soon as we receive them, but we will not further comment on the findings. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at . 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 POP, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.
For the whole of last year, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of sharing our research experience with the readers and the general public, and the subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP". In the near future, we will keep on stepping up our effort in promoting general civic education to enhance our POP Site accordingly.
About HKUPOP
Popularity survey of CE and the HKSAR Government
One important aspect of opinion polling around the world is to monitor people's appraisal of the top leader and overall satisfaction with the government. Shortly after HKUPOP was established, we started to conduct surveys on these aspects. We explained the development of these surveys in our press releases of October 31 and November 28, 2006. Today, we release an updated version with some editing, so that readers can have a more comprehensive picture of such development.
(1) Development of CE's popularity survey
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From its establishment to the handover of Hong Kong, POP has continually conducted surveys to measure the popularity rating of Governor Chris Patten. After the handover when Tung Chee-hwa became the first Chief Executive in 1997, we began our popularity survey of CE Tung Chee-hwa. After Tung resigned and Donald Tsang succeeded, POP has begun to measure Tsang's popularity. The frequency of our surveys was at least once every month during the Patten era. It was then increased to three times per month when Tung became CE, until the end of 1997. From January 1998 onwards, it was reduced to twice every month.
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The question wordings used in "popularity of Governor or CE" survey are: "Please use a scale of 0-100 to rate your extent of support to the Governor/ the Chief Executive XXX, with 0 indicating absolutely not supportive, 100 indicating absolutely supportive and 50 indicating half-half. How would you rate the Chief Executive XXX?" and "If a general election of the Chief Executive were to be held tomorrow, and you had the right to vote, would you vote for
XXX?".
(2) Development of people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government survey
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The survey on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government was started in July 1997. Since then, it has been conducted once every month.
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The question wordings used in the questionnaire are: "Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the HKSAR Government?".
Before April 2000, the sample size of our regular surveys was set at slightly over 500. After that, it was increased to at least 1,000. The above surveys are of no exception. All the above findings are now released on POP Site on a regular basis. Previous findings published in our newsletter POP Express have also been uploaded online in various formats.
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