HKU POP SITE releases survey on Chief Executive election for the first timeBack

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| Detailed Findings (First Survey on Chief Executive election 2007) |

In 1996, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong conducted 5 rounds of surveys on the Chief Executive election, 4 of which were conducted after Tung Chee-hwa formally announced his intention to stand for the election. POP's operation in 1996 was as follows:

October 18, 1996 CH Tung announced his intention to stand for the election
October 23-24, 1996 POP conducted a survey on the 5 potential candidates
November 2, 1996 Preparatory Committee confirmed a list of 8 qualified candidates
November 6-7, 1996 POP conducted a survey on the 8 qualified candidates
November 15, 1996 400-person Selection Committee confirmed 3 candidates after voting, namely, CH Tung, TL Yang and Peter Woo
November 18-19, 1996 POP conducted a survey on the 3 final candidates
December 9, 1996 POP conducted the final pre-election survey on the 3 final candidates
December 11, 1996 Election of the CE by the Selection Committee

In the second CE election of 2002, Tung Chee-hwa obtained 706 nominations from the then 796-person Selection Committee, and therefore was elected unopposed. POP, therefore, did not conduct any CE election survey. 

In the CE by-election of 2005, Donald Tsang, Lee Wing-tat and Chim Pui-chung all announced their intention to stand for the CE election. POP, therefore, conducted three rounds of surveys in June 2005. The first survey was conducted on June 1-3, to measure the three potential candidates' support rates. The second survey was conducted on June 6-8, to gauge people's view on the candidates and on the election system. On June 16, Donald Tsang obtained 714 nominations from the then 800-person Election Committee and was elected unopposed. POP then conducted the third survey on June 20-23, to gauge people's opinion about Tsang's success and the whole election process. The results of the respective surveys were released on June 6, 13 and 28.

Over the last two weeks, both Alan Leong and Donald Tsang have embarked on their CE election campaigns, both claiming that they have secured enough nominations. POP therefore switched on our CE election series accordingly. Because this year's CE election would engage the general public much more than before, we intend to conduct a variety of election surveys to match the changing situation, including feature surveys, rolling surveys and post-election surveys. We welcome sponsorship from the media and research institutes, on condition that POP's independence and autonomy would not be affected.

The survey released by POP today via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) mainly requested respondents to rate the suitability of the 2 potential candidates widely reported by the media, with 0 indicating absolutely not suitable, 100 indicating absolutely suitable and 50 indicating half-half. Respondents were requested to make a hypothetical voting on the two candidates as Chief Executive as well. In-depth demographic analyses are also presented, along with corresponding figures.

As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population obtained from the population census. The contact information of the three studies are tabulated as follows:

Ratings of the two candidates in terms of their suitability to be Chief Executive are summarized below:

Results of the hypothetical voting on the two candidates are summarized below:

* "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.
** "Uncertain" refers to those who answered "neither of them /abstention" and "don't know/hard to say" in the survey.

Our latest survey shows that Donald Tsang's suitability rating was 68.7 marks, while his recognition rate was 97%. Alan Leong scored 44.3 marks with a recognition rate of 89%. As for the hypothetical voting, 73% supported Donald Tsang as the Chief Executive while 18% supported Leong. 9% were counted as blank votes.

Commentary

Basing on the results of the survey, Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following analysis:

(1) At this early stage when CE election campaigns have just started, Donald Tsang is no doubt on the strong side. In terms of suitability ratings, Tsang is way ahead of Alan Leong in all demographic categories, while Leong only obtains a passing score among supporters of the pro-democratic camp. Even there, he is 6 marks behind Tsang. In terms of hypothetical voting, Tsang also leads Leong by wide margins in all categories, including the 13 percentage-point lead among supporters of the pro-democratic camp.

(2) Figures reveal that although Leong's popularity is on the low side, he has relatively more support among the more educated and professionals. Whether he could strengthen or even expand his support there is something worth observing.

Robert Chung also observed, "All evidence points to the fact that incumbent Chief Executive Donald Tsang has enjoyed significant advantage over Alan Leong, both in terms of popularity figures and political reality. Using the election system we have, the result is already too obvious. However, the way the candidates perform themselves during the election, the promises they make, and the difference between election results and opinion poll figures, will all affect the future development of Hong Kong's election culture, as well as the mandate of the next CE."

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 next Tuesday, between 1pm to 2pm, when the latest findings of top 5 members of the Executive Council will be released. Then on February 16, Friday, between 1pm to 2pm, we will release the findings of the second round results of our CE election survey.

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 <[email protected]>. 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.

| Background | Latest Figures | Commentary | News about POP | 
| Detailed Findings (First Survey on Chief Executive election 2007) |