HKU POP SITE releases the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and the HKSAR GovernmentBack

Press Release on October 30, 2007

Special Announcement

(1) The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong will begin to conduct daily rolling polls on the Legislative Council by-election for the Hong Kong Island Geographical Constituency once the nomination of candidates has ended. The methodology will be the same as previous rolling polls and to be conducted every day. Findings of which will be released to sponsors for exclusive use on the same day, and then will be uploaded onto the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) for public consumption after no less than 48 hours. Organizations wishing to join the sponsorship of these surveys are welcome to contact Miss Chau or Miss Pang at 3921-2700.

(2) With effective from 22 October 2007, POP has been relocated from Meng Wah Complex at the University of Hong Kong to 5/F, Kennedy Town Centre, 23 Belcher's Road, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong. The general line is changed to 3921-2700. The fax number, email address and website address remain unchanged.

Latest Figures

POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and the HKSAR Government. 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 in mid-2007. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Sampling error of percentages*
22-25/10/2007	1,016	67.4%	+/- 3%

* Calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. "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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sample error. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

Recent popularity figures of Donald Tsang and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:

Date of survey	4-7/9	17-21/9	2-5/10	10/10	22-25/10		Latest change^
Sample base	1,025	1,008	1,008	1,023	1,016		--
Overall response rate	66.0%	65.5%	65.4%	69.9%	67.4%		--
Maximum sampling error of ratings (at 95 % confidence level)*	+/-1.2	+/-1.0	+/-1.2	+/- 1.0	+/-1.2		--
Sampling error of percentages (at 95% confidence level)*	+/-3%	+/-3%	+/-3%	+/-3%	+/-3%		--
Finding for each question/Sampling error*	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Sampling error	--
Rating of CE Donald Tsang	65.3	65.4	65.8	64.4	62.9	+/-1.2	-1.5
Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang	68%	64%	63%	62%	64%	+/-3%	+2%
Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang	15%	15%	15%	14%	18%	+/-2%	+4%
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance**	--	53%	--	--	56%	+/-3%	+3%
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance**	--	11%	--	--	11%	+/-2%	--

* 「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 +/-1.2, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level」 when quoting the above figures.
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale.
^ The polling cycle for different items varies. Parallel comparison across items should be synchronized.

The latest survey conducted in late-October showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 62.9 marks, and 64% supported him as the Chief Executive. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 56% were satisfied, whereas 11% were dissatisfied.

Opinion Daily

In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site", to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis. Our purpose is to provide readers with accurate information so that they can judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. When "Opinion Daily" began to operate on January 17, 2007, it only contained significant events and popularity figures of the Chief Executive over the past few months. As of today, it contains a chronology of events starting from May 1, 2006, and many poll figures registered since January 1, 2006. Readers can now check on the results of 9 different polling items compiled by POP, including the popularity of the Chief Executive, the HKSAR government, and the Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system. In near future, the content of 「Opinion Daily」 will continue to expand, in order to promote the science of opinion polling.

In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the 「Opinion Daily」 feature page as soon as they are verified by POP, in order to provide readers with swifter and more accurate information.

In August 2007, POP began to include in its regular press releases a list of significant events which happened in between two surveys, so that readers can make their own judgment on whether these events have any effect on the ups and downs of the polling figures. This press release is no exception.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from September 17 to 21, 2007 while this survey was conducted from October 22 to 25, 2007. In between these two surveys, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.

23/10/07	Government subsidizes MTR $6 billion to build West Island Line.
18/10/07	Hang Seng Index breaches the 30,000-point level for the first time
17/10/07	The government furthers its plans for political appointees to the administration
13/10/07	1) CE Donald Tsang apologizes for equating democracy with Cultural Revolution 2) Finanical Secretary plans for tax cuts
10/10/07	CE Donald Tsang releases his Policy Address entitled "A New Direction for Hong Kong"
9/10/07	Green light for rail merger
2/10/07	Hang Seng Index soars, reaching over 28,000 points
19/9/07	Hang Seng index soared through the 25,500-point mark
18/9/07	Government discloses investigation report on the accident of Ngong Ping 360 cable car
17/9/07	Government suspends poultry imports from Guangdong

Commentary

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, 「Compared to two weeks ago, the support rating of CE Donald Tsang has dropped 1.5 marks. His disapproval rate has increased 4 percentage points from a low level, but his approval rate has also increased slightly by 2 percentage points. All in all, Donald Tsang's popularity has remained stable with a slight drop, apparently unaffected by his association of democracy with the Cultural Revolution. Or perhaps there were effects, but they have been neutralized. Regarding the popularity of the SAR Government, it has increased slightly compared to a month ago, probably due to the positive effect of the Policy Address. As for other possible reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed 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 November 1, 2007, Thursday, between 1pm and 2pm, when the latest ratings of the top 10 Legislative Councillors will be released. Then on November 6, 2007, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, the latest figures on the popularity of SAR and Central Governments, and people's confidence in the future 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

Again on mapping people's trust and satisfaction of different governments

One important aspect of opinion polling around the world is to monitor people's trust and satisfaction of the government. Shortly after HKUPOP was established, we started to conduct surveys on these aspects. Regarding the development of these surveys, we have explained it separately in our press releases of August 22, November 28, December 14 and 27, 2006, April 3, July 3 as well as September 25, 2007. Today, we post it again in order to give readers a complete picture of such developments.

(1) Mapping people's trust in different governments

Due to Hong Kong's very special political status, before the handover in 1997, our survey covered people's trust in the British Hong Kong, British, Chinese, and Taiwan Governments. After the handover, the survey method remained unchanged, but the term British Hong Kong Government was substituted by HKSAR Government, and Chinese Government was substituted by Central Government, while our survey on people's trust in the British Government stopped.
Our surveys began in December 1992, the wordings used in the questionnaire are "On the whole, do you trust such and such government?". Surveys were conducted once every month, until October 1997 when it was changed to once every two months. It has remained unchanged since then.

(2) Mapping people's satisfaction with the government

In December 1992, we started to survey people's trust in the British Hong Kong, British, Chinese, and Taiwan Governments. These surveys continued after the handover, but we expanded their scope by introducing people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government. We take measurements as frequently as we could, using our limited resources. Besides people's general satisfaction with the HKSAR Government, our survey also includes indicators on the government's performance in maintaining economic prosperity, improving people's livelihood, pace of democratic development, and so on.
Our surveys on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government in general began in July 1997. Since then, it has been conducted once every month. The wordings used in the questionnaire are "Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the HKSAR Government?".

Also from July 1997, we began to survey people's satisfaction with the government's performance in five policy areas using the following questions: 「Are you satisfied with the performance of the HKSAR Government in maintaining economic prosperity / improving people's livelihood / developing democracy / protecting human rights and freedom / handling of its relation with the Central Government?」 The frequency of these sub-indicator surveys, however, was gradually thinned down from once every month at the beginning, to once every two months between July 2000 and May 2003, and then to once every three months since July 2003, in order to match the changing social conditions.

Before May 2000, the sample size of our regular surveys was set at slightly over 500, we increased it to at least 1,000 after that. The above surveys are no exceptions. The findings of these surveys are now published regularly on-line at our HKU POP Site, while all previous findings published via our newsletter POP Express have also been uploaded on-line in various formats.