HKU POP SITE releases the first POP-NOW survey on political reformBack

Since its establishment in 1991, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong has been conducting different types of opinion studies on social and political issues, as well as providing research services for different organizations, on condition that POP would design and conduct all studies independently, and could also release the findings for public consumption. In November 2009, POP came into agreement with NOW TV for a project called "Joint Public Opinion Research Project on Political Reform". The main objective of the project is to demonstrate, by focusing on ongoing discussions of political reform, how independent research institute and professional news media investigate, analyze, report and comment on public opinion, including the explanation and promotion of professional ethics of opinion studies.The project comprises conducting regular and ad-hoc opinion surveys and other public opinion studies after the launching of public consultation by the government. The survey results will first be released in NOW TV programmes, followed by POP press releases for public consumption. NOW TV agrees to POP uploading these programmes to the POP Site for public education, while POP agrees to NOW TV using these findings for productions without POP's involvement.

The latest survey findings released by POP through NOW TV today have been weighted according to the provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in mid-2009. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Date of survey	Sample base	Overall response rate	Sampling error of percentages*
19-23/11/09	1,001	76.7%	+/-3%

* "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.

Latest findings of survey questions are as follows:

The Government has already released the Consultation Document of Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2012. How much do you know about this issue? *
Much	8% +/-2%	Half-half	17% +/-2%	Little	68% +/-3%	Don't know/ Hard to say	7% +/-2%	Total	100%
No matter how much you know, do you incline to support or oppose the Government's political reform proposals at this stage? *
Support	35% +/-3%	Half-half	14% +/-2%	Oppose	32% +/-3%	Don't know/ Hard to say	18% +/-2%	Total	100%
For the Chief Executive election in 2012, it is proposed that the representatives of Election Committee should be increased from 800 to 1,200 with around 100 representatives returned through election by elected District Council members from among themselves. Besides, every 150 Committee members can nominate 1 Chief Executive candidate, that is, the nomination threshold is set at the ratio of one-eight of the total membership of the Election Committee. How much do you support or oppose this proposal? *
Support	43% +/-3%	Half-half	10% +/-2%	Oppose	31% +/-3%	Don't know/ Hard to say	15% +/-2%	Total	100%
For the Legislative Council election in 2012, it is proposed that there should be 5 more seats of geographical constituencies and 5 more seats of functional constituencies which are returned through election by elected District Council members from among themselves, while existing functional seats remain unchanged. How much do you support or oppose this proposal? *
Support	43% +/-3%	Half-half	13% +/-2%	Oppose	28% +/-3%	Don't know/ Hard to say	16% +/-2%	Total	100%
When discussing political reform proposals, if there is no other choice, how easy or difficult is it for you to accept proposals which you do not support? *
Easy	28% +/-3%	Half-half	13% +/-2%	Difficult	47% +/-3%	Don't know/ Hard to say	11% +/-2%	Total	100%

* Collapsed from a 5-point scale.

The latest survey findings showed that 8% of respondents said they know much about the public consultation on methods for selecting the Chief Executive and for forming the Legislative Council in 2012, while 68% said that they know little about it. Nevertheless, at the moment 35% supported the Government's political reform proposals and 32% opposed.

With respect to the Government's proposal of Chief Executive election in 2012, the question we used was: "It is proposed that the representatives of Election Committee should be increased from 800 to 1200 with around 100 representatives returned through election by elected District Council members from among themselves. Besides, every 150 Committee members can nominate 1 Chief Executive candidate, that is, the nomination threshold is set at the ratio of one-eight of the total membership of the Election Committee." Results showed that 43% of the respondents supported and 31% opposed this proposal. As for the Government's proposal on the Legislative Council election in 2012, the question wordings used in this survey were: "It is proposed that there should be 5 more seats of geographical constituencies and 5 more seats of functional constituencies which are returned through election by elected District Council members from among themselves, while existing functional seats remain unchanged." Results showed that this proposal attained a support rate of 43%, versus 28% opposition.

Meanwhile, when discussing the political reform proposals, if there is no other choice, 28% said they were easy to accept policies which they do not support, while 47% said they found it difficult to accept.

Note: The following commentary has been extracted and enhanced from the comments made by the Director of Public Opinion Programme Dr Robert Chung on 7 December 2009 during the Now TV News Channel programme "News Magazine", in the "Now Survey on Political Reform" segment.

Q: The survey findings showed that 68% of the respondents said they know little about the proposals of political reform, yet 35% said that they support the political reform proposals, does this reflect that people do not know what they are supporting for?
A: Knowledge of political reform and its supporting rate are separate issues. The fact that most people admit that they do not understand the proposals means that the public opinion is highly malleable.

Q: Does the high malleability imply there is a large room for wrestling between the Government and Pro-democratic camp?
A: When people say they know an issue very well and have a strong view, the possibility of opinion change will be small. However, political wrestling often distorts public opinion. People's wisdom will increase if different parties would follow the call of public opinion and approach it scientifically.

Q: People don't have much choice now, why only concentrate on the government proposals and not those suggested by the democrats?
A: We are still in the early stage of consultation, and there is still no concrete proposal on the street. We therefore concentrate on mapping people's opinion on the government proposals. For two out of our three specific questions, we used the expression "it is proposed" this and that to avoid possible labeling effects. For the remaining question, we simply use "support or oppose the government's proposals" to test labeling effect. When no specific detail was given about the government proposals, about 1/3 support and oppose the proposals both ways.

Q: Does this survey aim at tracking opinion changes over time on political reform?
A: Yes, that is why we will conduct at least one survey per month. However, when sudden events occur, we will also run instant ad hoc surveys. In our discussion of democratic development, other than looking at elections and the number of seats, we hope we can also look at the supporting mechanisms of a democratic system, like the existence of scientific public opinion surveys and professional news media.