HKU POP SITE releases the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal OfficialsBack

| Special Announcement | Latest Figures | Commentary | News about POP | About HKUPOP |
| Detailed Findings (Popularity of Chief Executive / Popularity of Principal Officials) |

The "Hong Kong People's Opinion Platform" (HKPOP, at http://hkpop.hk) designed and operated independently by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong was officially launched on June 10. The Platform include a number of sub-platforms like the "Political Reform Opinion Platform", the "West Kowloon and Harbour-Front Opinion Platform" and many others. The main purpose of HKPOP is to conduct consultation of the people by the people for the people, on matters related to the people.

POP today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials under the accountability system. As a general practice, all figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population at the end of 2006. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

As different questions involve different sub-samples, the sample errors will vary accordingly. The table below briefly shows the relationship between sample size and maximum sampling errors for the readers to capture the corresponding changes:

"Maximum sampling errors" occur when survey figures are close to 50%. If the figures are close to 0% or 100%, the sampling error will diminish accordingly. The sampling errors of ratings, however, will depend on the distribution of the raw figures. Since January 2007, POP lists out the sampling errors of all survey figures in detail and explain them in due course. Recent popularity figures of Donald Tsang 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. Media can state "sampling error of ratings +/-1.0, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures.

Figures on the latest popularity ratings of the three Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system are summarized below:

* The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions, and also different from that of CE popularity ratings. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals.
** "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. Media can state "sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-1.2, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures.
# This series of questions only uses sub-samples of our Budget instant survey, the sample size for each question also varies. Regarding the change of Henry Tang's popularity figures, one can compare them per poll, or with other officials' figures after synchronizing them to the same cycle.

Figures on the latest popularity ratings of Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system are summarized below:

* Starting from 2006, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, the sample size for each question also varies.
** "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. Media can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures.
^ This series of questions was conducted once every two months, different from the frequency of hypothetical support ratings. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same cycle.

The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 66.8 marks, and 72% supported him as the Chief Executive. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Rafael Hui Si-yan, FS Henry Tang Ying-yen and SJ Wong Yan-lung were 57.8, 66.6 and 66.0 marks, and 34%, 77% and 65% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. As for the Directors of Bureaux, results revealed that the top approval rate fell to Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong, attaining 74%. Secretary for Economic Development and Labour Stephen Ip Shu-kwan followed behind in the 2nd rank who attained 57%. The 3rd to 5th ranks went to Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food York Chow Yat-ngok, Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung and Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue Chung-yee, obtaining supporting rates of 48%, 46% and 44% respectively. Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma Si-hang, Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping and Secretary for the Commerce, Industry and Technology Joseph Wong Wing-ping, occupied the 6th to 8th places, achieving 38%, 36% and 29% accordingly. Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung, Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Michael Suen Ming-yeung and Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li Kwok-cheung ranked the 9th to 11th, as they gained 27%, 25% and 22% vote of confidence from the public respectively. In other words, only Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong and Stephen Ip Shu-kwan scored approval rates of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux.

Commentary

On the popularity figures of the CE and the three Secretaries, Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Our latest survey shows that the support rating of CE Donald Tsang has dropped significantly compared to that registered at the end of May, but his support rate has remained unchanged. Overall, it seems that the popularity of CE Donald Tsang can still be considered as stable, but the issues of political reform and personnel changes in his new leadership core will become important factors affecting his future popularity. As for the three Secretaries of Departments, the support rate of FS Henry Tang has surged 9 percentage points compared to a month ago, and his support rate increased by 2 marks, while the figures for the other two Secretaries remained stable. According to our records in the 'Opinion Daily' section of our POP Site, the cut in beer price announced by the suppliers in late May was a major event reported by the media, and Henry Tang was accrued all the credits. This probably explains the surge in Tang's popularity."

On the popularity figures of the Directors of Bureaux, Robert Chung observed, "Compared to two months ago, the support rates of 3 bureau heads have dropped significantly. They include Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao, whose support rate dropped 7 percentage points, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma and Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li, who both dropped 6 percentage points. Affected by the Hong Kong Institute of Education incident, the support rate of the bottom-ranking Arthur Li now stands at only 22%, with opposition rate as high as 47%."

Since this is the last POP survey on the popularity of Donald Tsang's cabinet, Robert Chung concluded, "The Accountability System of Principal Officials has been in operation for 5 whole years. Many questions which surrounded the system when it was first implemented still remain unresolved. These include the reward-penalty aspect of the system, and how to make these officials accountable. It was quite some time ago that POP discussed and suggested a number of benchmarks for mapping the popularity of these officials (please refer to the supplementary section in our press release of October 10, 2006), we will continue to adopt these benchmarks to evaluate the performance of these officials, in order to provide a reference for the CE to re-appoint or dismiss these officials. Mapped to these benchmarks, findings of this last round of survey show that Henry Tang, Ambrose Lee and Donald Tsang's performance can be labeled as 'ideal', since their approval rates are more than 66%. Wong Yan-lung and Stephen Ip can be labeled as 'successful' with support rates exceeding 50%. The combined support and disapproval rates of Rafael Hui and Denise Yue do not reach 50%, so their performance can be labeled as 'inconspicuous'. The performances of all other officials range between 'successful' and 'depressing' and can be labeled as 'mediocre'. No official falls under the categories of 'depressing' or 'disastrous', although Arthur Li is now dangerously close to being 'depressing'. POP will soon explain the concept of these benchmarks again, in order to facilitate further discussions on how to make these principal officials more accountable to the general public."

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 June 14, 2007, Thursday, between 1pm to 2pm, when we will release the latest popularity figures of SAR and Central Governments, and people's confidence in the future. Since next Tuesday will be a public holiday, POP Site will release our survey result on June 20, 2007, Wednesday, between 1pm to 2pm when the latest figures of people's appraisal of local news media will be released.

It is our general practice 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.

Since January 2006, 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". 

About HKUPOP

Popularity surveys of CE and principal officials

In advanced democratic countries, the popularity of top leaders and principal officials is the crux of all opinion polls. Shortly after HKUPOP was established, we started to conduct surveys on these aspects. We have explained the development of these surveys in our press releases of October 31, 2006, January 16 and 31, February 8 as well as April 12, 2007. Today, we post it again, so that readers can have a more comprehensive picture of such development. 

(1) Development of CE's popularity survey

• 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.
  
  

• 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?".
  
  

• 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.

(2) Development of CE's popularity (performance) survey

• The frequency of our surveys was once every two months since August 2002. From February 2004 onwards, it was reduced to once every six months.
  
  

• The question wordings used in "CE popularity (performance)" survey are: "Do you think XXX is doing a good or bad job as CE?".
  
  

• Regarding the sample size, ever since the beginning, the sample size of surveys has been set at slightly over 1,000.

(3) Development of the survey for Secretaries of Departments:

• For the rating survey of the Secretaries of Departments, in between January to November 2001, the survey was conducted at an irregular basis. From January 2002 onwards, the survey is conducted once every month. For the support rates of the Secretaries based on people's hypothetical vote of confidence, it was surveyed once every three months from September 2002 to December 2003. Then it was changed to once every two months from February 2004 to December 2005. From January 2006 onwards, the survey is conducted once every month.
  
  

• The wordings used in the questionnaire are: "Please use a scale of 0-100 to rate your extent of support to Chief Secretary for Administration XXX/Financial Secretary YYY/Secretary for Justice ZZZ, with 0 indicating absolutely not supportive, 100 indicating supportive and 50 indicating half-half. How would you rate XXX/YYY/ZZZ?". For the support rates of Secretaries, the wordings are "If you had the right to vote on the reappointment or dismissal of XXX/YYY/ZZZ as the Chief Secretary for Administration/Financial Secretary/Secretary for Justice tomorrow, how would you vote?"
  
  

• Regarding the sample size, ever since the beginning, the sample size of surveys has been set at slightly over 1,000. 

(4) Development of the survey for Directors of Bureaux:

• For the rating survey of the Directors of Bureaux, in between June 2002 to December 2005, the frequency was once every month. From January 2006 to June 2007, the survey is conducted once every two months. For the support rates of Directors of Bureaux, the frequency was once every three months from September 2002 to December 2003. Then from February 2004 to June 2007, the survey is conducted once every two months. In July 2007, with the beginning of CE's new term of office and the appointment of new principal officials, the frequency of support rate survey of the Directors of Bureaux was increased to once every month, while the frequency of rating survey was reduced to once every three months. Moreover, although all survey results are uploaded onto the POP Site in detail, POP no longer analyze the result of rating surveys. This is to better match the evolvement of the accountability system as well as the pace of democratic development.
  
  

• Similar to the popularity survey of the Secretaries of Departments, that of the Directors of Bureaux also includes the questions of rating and hypothetical voting. The wordings used in the questionnaire are: "Please use a scale of 0-100 to rate your extent of support to XXX, with 0 indicating absolutely not supportive, 100 indicating supportive and 50 indicating half-half. How would you rate XXX?" and "If you had the right to vote on the reappointment or dismissal of XXX as YYYYYY tomorrow, how would you vote?" However, the two questions may not be asked in the same survey.
  
  

• Regarding the sample size, from the beginning to December 2005, the sample size of the surveys was set at slightly over 1,000. However, from 2006 onwards, this series of questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, and the sample size for each question also varies.

All the findings from our surveys on "popularity of principal officials" have been released online through our HKU POP Site.

| Special Announcement | Latest Figures | Commentary | News about POP | About HKUPOP |
| Detailed Findings (Popularity of Chief Executive / Popularity of Principal Officials) |