HKU POP SITE releases survey findings on the Executive Councilors, Under Secretaries,Political Assistants, and Legislative Council electionBack
| Press Release on August 5, 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Special Announcement | Abstract | (1) Top 5 members of Executive Council | (2) Under Secretaries and Political Assistants | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Special Announcement Sponsored by a number of organizations, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong, has already begun to conduct its rolling poll on the 2008 Legislative Council election. The poll is conducted every day, its findings will be released to sponsors for exclusive use on the same day, and then uploaded onto the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) for public consumption after the election. Organizations wishing to sponsor this rolling poll please contact Miss Chau or Miss Pang at 3921-2700. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong conducted a number of surveys early this month. In regard to the Executive Councillors, it was found that the popularity ratings of people's most familiar non-official Executive Councillors have generally increased. Among them, Ronald Arculli, Leung Chun-ying and Cheng Yiu-tong all have record high ratings. In terms of relative ranking, Ronald Arculli and Selina Chow continue to occupy the first and second positions, Leung Chun-ying moves one step up to become the third, Cheng Yiu-tong passes the recognition benchmark again to become the fourth, while Jasper Tsang continues to stay on the fifth. Bernard Chan who was third last time has dropped out of the list. Regarding Under Secretaries and Political Assistants, it was found that 4 out of 8 Under Secretaries and 5 out of 9 Political Assistants receive zero recognition, meaning that Hong Kong people are not at all familiar with this new team. More than two months have elapsed since the SAR Government announced the appointment of these officials, but still more than half of them have zero recognition rate. The controversy surrounding their appointment might have taken its toll. Regarding the Legislative Council election, after the nomination period is over, about 70% of all registered voters managed to tell us the exact date of the election, namely, September 7. This seems to indicate fair awareness of the election. However, for split-vote strategies, only one-fifth of the voters said they would be willing to follow split-vote instructions for strategic voting. This is similar to our survey conducted four years ago same time before the election. Of course, if political groups would adopt a more natural split-voting campaign strategy, the voters themselves might not have realized it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (1) Top 5 members of Executive Council POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest ratings of the Top 5 members of Executive Council. As a general practice, all figures have already been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2007 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
The research design of our "Top 5 Executive Councilors" is similar to that of our "Top 10" series, it is explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our 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 early-July. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 5 non-official Executive Councillors whom they knew best. Leung Chun-ying, Jasper Tsang, Selina Chow, Bernard Chan, Cheng Yiu-tong, Anthony Cheung, Ronald Arculli, Laura Cha, Fan Hung-ling and Leong Che-hung were the ten most frequently mentioned councillors. Please refer to the relevant table in our website for the rest of the list. Those 7 who were named most frequently then entered into the second stage rating survey. During the second stage rating survey conducted in late-July, respondents were asked to rate each short-listed councillor 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 councillors in terms of recognition rate was dropped; the remaining 5 were then ranked according to their support ratings attained to become the top 5 Executive Councillors. Recent ratings of the top 5 members of Executive Council are summarized as follows:
** Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 5 in either stage of survey are not available. [ ] Number in square brackets indicates rankings. The latest survey conducted in late-July showed that Ronald Arculli was the most popularly supported non-official Executive Councillor, attaining 63.3 marks. The 2nd rank went to Selina Chow with 58.4 marks. The 3rd and 4th ranks went to Leung Chun-ying and Cheng Yiu-tong, with 56.3 and 56.0 marks respectively. Jasper Tsang occupied the 5th rank, attaining 53.4 marks. The mean score obtained by these top 5 non-official Executive Councillors was 57.5 marks. For this latest survey, Anthony Cheung and Bernard Chan both obtained a support rating of 58.4 marks, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rate. The overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past year are tabulated as follows:
** "Overall ranking" is first determined by their number of times on top 10, and then their average ratings. ^ Ratings with recognition rates not reaching top 5 in either stage of survey are not available. The overall rankings in the past year showed that three non-official Executive Councillors have been on the list for four times. They are Selina Chow in the top rank achieving an average rating of 56.6 marks, Leung Chun-ying who ranked 2nd and attained 52.8 marks, Jasper Tsang who ranked 3rd with 50.7 marks. Ronald Arculli has been on the list for three times and occupied the 4th place with 62.3 marks. Cheng Yiu-tong has been on the list for two times and occupied the fifth place with 53.5 marks. Three non-official Executive Councillors have been on the list once. They were Anthony Cheung, Bernard Chan and David Li who ranked 6th to 8th with 56.4, 55.5 and 52.8 marks respectively. Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Compared to three months ago, the popularity ratings of people's most familiar non-official Executive Councillors have generally increased. Among them, Ronald Arculli, Leung Chun-ying and Cheng Yiu-tong all have record high ratings. In terms of relative ranking, Ronald Arculli and Selina Chow continue to occupy the first and second positions, Leung Chun-ying moves one step to become the third, Cheng Yiu-tong passes the recognition benchmark again to become the fourth, while Jasper Tsang continues to stay on the fifth. Bernard Chan who was third last time has dropped out of the list. It should be noted, however, that our list of 'top five' only includes non-official councillors best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other councillors may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are not the most well-known councillors, they do not appear on the list by design. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these popularity ratings, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in the 'Opinion Daily' of our POP Site." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (2) Under Secretaries and Political Assistants In May 2008, the HKSAR Government announced the list of newly employed Under Secretaries and Political Assistants. POP has now conducted a survey to gauge people's familiarity with these officials, as a test of their popularity. Herewith the contact information for the survey:
Herewith the result of our latest survey on "people's most familiar Under Secretaries":
# The percentages of respondents who could name Julia Leung Fung-yee and Kitty Poon Kit were 1.20% and 1.16% respectively. Hence Leung ranked the 3th while Poon was placed at 4th rank. Herewith the result of our latest survey on "people's most familiar Political Assistants":
In our naming survey conducted in early-July, respondents could name, unaided, Under Secretaries and Political Assistants whom they knew best. Results showed that only four Under Secretaries were mentioned, they were Gregory So, Raymond Tam, Julia Leung and Kitty Poon. The corresponding percentages of respondents who could name these figures were 3%, 2%, 1% and 1%. Yet, 90% of the respondents could not recall any names of Under Secretaries. As for Political Assistants, similarly, only four Political Assistants were mentioned, they were Zandra Mok, Paul Chan, Jeremy Young and Raymond Cheung. The corresponding percentages of respondents who could name these figures were 5%, 2%, 1% and less than 1%. Yet, 89% of the respondents could not recall any names of Political Assistants. Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "In our survey, 4 out of 8 Under Secretaries and 5 out of 9 Political Assistants receive zero recognition, meaning that Hong Kong people are not at all familiar with this new team. More than two months have elapsed since the SAR Government announced the appointment of these officials, but still more than half of them have zero recognition rate. The controversy surrounding their appointment might have taken its toll. It should be noted, however, that our ranking of recognition is based on respondents' ability to name these officials unaided. This kind of familiarity measurement is not the same as prompted ratings, and the results may not necessarily indicate people's support of these officials. In other words, those high on the list may not be the most supported figures, while those lower down may have a different ranking if we use a prompting method. As for the reasons affecting the popularity of these officials, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in the 'Opinion Daily' of our POP Site." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (3) Legislative Council Election Whenever there are large-scale elections, POP would conduct regular surveys to track opinion changes. On election days, POP would also conduct exit polls to study voter behaviour and motivation. After the nomination period for this year's Legislative Council election is over, POP conducted the first pre-election survey, with the following contact information:
Major findings are summarized below, together with parallel figures obtained in the last Legislative Council election of 2004：
One month before this year's election, 69% of the registered voters responded were aware of the coming Legislative Council election in September. With respect to whether they would follow split-vote instructions for strategic voting, 20% inclined to do so, which means an increase of 1 percentage-point compared to the same time in 2004. On the other hand, 64% inclined not to do so, which means an increase of 8 percentage-points compared to the same time in 2004. Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "After the nomination period for this year's Legislative Council election is over, about 70% of all registered voters managed to tell us the exact date of the election, namely, September 7. This seems to indicate fair awareness of the election. As for split-vote strategies, only one-fifth of the voters said they would be willing to follow split-vote instructions for strategic voting. This is similar to our survey conducted four years ago same time before the election. Of course, if political groups would adopt a more natural split-voting campaign strategy, the voters themselves might not have realized it. We may be able to study this issue deeper using our rolling poll results, which would be released through our sponsors starting tomorrow." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 August 12, 2008, Tuesday, between 1pm and 2pm, when the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system will be released. POP will also follow the rhythm of the WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) to globally release the Chinese versions of WPO's press releases regularly, via our "World Public Opinion Platform" accessible through our POP Site and the "Hong Kong People's Opinion Platform" at http://www.hkpop.hk. 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | Special Announcement | Abstract | (1) Top 5 members of Executive Council | (2) Under Secretaries and Political Assistants | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
