HKU POP SITE releases the latest ratings of the top 10 political groupsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of the top 10 political groups in November, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. The surveys find that NWS has re-entered the list first time in two years, after passing the recognition benchmark to reach the top of the ladder. Its rating now stands at 51.8 marks. Compared to 3 months ago, the rating of DP has significantly dropped by 1.3 marks, probably due to the incident of Kam Nai-wai. The ratings of other groups staying on the list have not changed much. In terms of relative rankings, NWS now tops the list, pushing FTU and CTU one position down to become the 2nd and 3rd. Other than ADPL dropping 2 positions to become the 5th and DP dropping 3 positions to become 7th, the change in relative rankings of other groups staying on the list is just within one position up or down. The maximum sampling errors of the ratings registered fall between +/-1.1 and +/-1.8 while the response rate of the rating survey is 77%.

Points to note:
* The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
* The sample size of the first stage naming survey is 1,003 successful interviews, not 1,003 x 72.2% response rate, while the sample size of the second stage rating survey is other 1,001 successful interviews, not 1,001 x 76.7% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* "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 +/-1.8 at 95% confidence level" when quoting the rating figures. In view of the error margins, one decimal place can be used when quoting these rating figures.
* The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses 「computerized random telephone survey」 to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

POP today releases on schedule via the POP Site the latest ratings of the top 10 political groups. As a general practice, all the 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 2009 mid-year. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

The research design of our "Top ten political groups" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top political groups listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted from November 10 to 18. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political groups whom they knew best. Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), Democratic Party (DP), Liberal Party (LP), Civic Party (CP) and League of Social Democrats (LSD) were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table in our website for the rest of the list. The 12 most frequently mentioned political groups then entered into the second stage rating survey. During that second stage survey conducted from November 19 to 23, respondents were asked to rate each political group 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 political groups in terms of recognition rate were dropped, leaving behind the top 10. In case any group failed to reach the 50% benchmark recognition rate, it would also be dropped. It should, however, be noted that because political groups are not yet legal entities in Hong Kong, such definitions are rather vague, and so-called political groups are constantly evolving. As a result, strange names may appear in the list of groups mentioned by respondents in Stage One surveys. In order to avoid personal bias, our research team will eliminate groups which fall outside the popular definition only after the first stage of the survey. Since the survey in August 2009, our research team considered that the Frontier no longer exists practically, so it has been eliminated from the list. To facilitate readers follow our research process step by step, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since July 1998. The latest ratings of the top 10 political groups, together with the previous ratings, are summarized below:

Findings obtained in the second half of November showed that, the best-known political group was the Neighbourhood and Workers Service (NWS) which attained 51.8 marks. Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) and Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) ranked 2nd and 3rd, with 51.7 marks and 51.3 marks respectively. The 4th and 5th places were Civic Party (CP) and Hong Kong Association for Democracy & People's Livelihood (ADPL), scoring 50.2 and 50.1. Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) and Democratic Party (DP) were of the 6th and 7th position, attaining 48.9 marks and 48.4 marks respectively. The 8th to 10th places fell to Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movement in China (HKASPDMC), Liberal Party (LP) and League of Social Democrats (LSD), with a respective score of 46.6, 44.9 and 40.6. The mean score obtained by the top 5 political groups was 50.0 marks. For this latest survey, Savantas Policy Institute and Hong Kong Democratic Foundation (HKDF) obtained a support rating of 47.5 and 46.2 marks respectively, but they were dropped due to their relatively low recognition rates. The overall ratings ranked according to results obtained over the past 12 months are tabulated as follows:

The overall rankings in the past 12 months showed that, the top 8 political groups were all listed for four times. FTU was in the top rank, achieving an average rating of 52.3 marks. HKCTU, CP and ADPL ranked 2nd to 4th, attaining 51.4, 50.2 and 49.9 marks respectively. Meanwhile, the 5th to 8th ranks fell to DAB, DP, LP and LSD with respective scores of 49.3, 48.8, 44.5 and 44.1. HKASPDMC was listed for three times, attaining 47.2 marks and ranked 9th. Frontier and AFA were listed for two times and ranked 10th and 11th, attaining 47.0 and 37.4 marks correspondingly. NWS was listed for once, with 51.8 marks and ranked 12th.

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, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from August 18 to 25, 2009 while this survey was conducted from November 19 to 23. 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.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, 「In our latest survey of "Top 10 Political Groups", NWS has re-entered the list first time in two years, after passing the recognition benchmark to reach the top of the ladder. Its rating now stands at 51.8 marks. Compared to 3 months ago, the rating of DP has significantly dropped by 1.3 marks, probably due to the incident of Kam Nai-wai. The ratings of other groups staying on the list have not changed much. In terms of relative rankings, NWS now tops the list, pushing FTU and CTU one position down to become the 2nd and 3rd. Other than ADPL dropping 2 positions to become the 5th and DP dropping 3 positions to become 7th, the change in relative rankings of other groups staying on the list is just within one position up or down. It should be noted, however, that our "Top 10 Political Groups" only includes groups which are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Other political groups may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are relatively less well-known, they are not included in our final list. As to what events have affected the ups and downs of the popularity of these groups, readers can make their own judgment after reading through detailed records placed in our "Opinion Daily".」

• December 1, 2009 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: People's most familiar political figures