| Background | Latest Figures | Commentary |
Background
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 first survey of this project was released on 7 December, POP today releases a survey on the 「collective resignation scheme」 of democratic Legislative Councilors, as well as some in-depth analyses regarding respondents' political inclination.
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Latest Figures
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* |
28/11-4/12/09 |
1,017 |
74.5% |
+/-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:
Q1. After the Government released the political reform proposal, it has been proposed that one legislative councilor from each of the 5 constituencies should resign to initiate by-elections, thus inducing a de facto referendum in order to show public opinion towards the political reform. How much do you support or oppose this suggestion? * |
Support |
26% +/-3% |
Half-half |
9% +/-2% |
Oppose |
51% +/-3% |
Don't know/ hard to say |
14% +/-2% |
Total |
100% |
Q2. If the democratic legislative councilor in your constituency would resign to induce a de facto referendum, and you have the right to vote, will you elect this resigned democratic councilor or his/her recommended candidate to return to the legislative council? * |
Yes |
36% +/-3% |
Half-half |
4% +/-1% |
No |
49% +/-3% |
Don't know/ hard to say |
12% +/-2% |
Total |
100% |
* Collapsed from a 5-point scale.
The latest survey findings showed that 26% of respondents said they support one legislative councilor from each of the 5 constituencies should resign to initiate a de facto referendum in order to show public opinion towards the political reform, while 51% oppose it. Moreover, if democratic legislative councilors really do that, 36% said they would elect the resigned democratic councilors or other candidates recommended by them to return to the Legislative Council, 49% said that they would not. The following are the in-depth analyses with reference to the political inclination of the respondents:
| |
Claimed to be democratic camp supporters |
Claimed to be pro-China camp supporters |
Claimed to be moderate or unaligned |
Overall sample size |
|
Q1. Support or oppose LC members resign to induce a de facto referendum?
|
Support |
40% +/-6%
(120) | 21% +/-9%
(16) | 20% +/-3%
(121) | 26% +/-3%
(261) |
|
Half-half | 10% +/-3%
(30) | 4% +/-4%
(3) | 10% +/-2%
(60) | 9% +/-2%
(93) |
|
Oppose | 37% +/-6%
(112) | 65% +/-11%
(51) | 56% +/-4%
(344) | 51% +/-3%
(517) |
|
Don't know/ hard to say | 13% +/-4%
(39) | 11% +/-7%
(9) | 14% +/-3%
(86) | 14% +/-2%
(141) |
|
Total | 100%
(301) | 100%
(79) | 100%
(610) | 100%
(1,012) |
| |
Claimed to be democratic camp supporters |
Claimed to be pro-China camp supporters |
Claimed to be moderate or unaligned |
Overall sample size |
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Q2. Will elect the resigned democratic LC member or his/her recommended candidate to return to LC?
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Yes | 67% +/-5%
(200) | 10% +/-6%
(8) | 25% +/-3%
(150) | 36% +/-3%
(362) | |
Half-half | 4% +/-2%
(12) | %
(0) | 4% +/-2%
(26) | 4% +/-1%
(38) | |
No | 23% +/-5%
(68) | 84% +/-8%
(67) | 58% +/-4%
(351) | 49% +/-3%
(495) | |
Don't know/ hard to say | 7% +/-3%
(21) | 6% +/-5%
(5) | 14% +/-3%
(82) | 12% +/-2%
(117) | |
Total | 100%
(301) | 100%
(79) | 100%
(610) | 100%
(1,012) |
In addition, using the same method to analyze the figures of the last political reform survey, the results are as follows:
| Date of survey:
19-23/11/09
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Claimed to be democratic camp supporters |
Claimed to be pro-China camp supporters |
Claimed to be moderate or unaligned |
Overall sample size |
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Q3. Incline to support or oppose the Government's political reform proposals at this stage?
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Support | 18% +/-4%
(64) | 76% +/-8%
(91) | 39% +/-4%
(186) | 35% +/-3%
(351) | |
Half-half | 11% +/-3%
(37) | 7% +/-5%
(8) | 18% +/-4%
(88) | 14% +/-2%
(141) | |
Oppose | 58% +/-5%
(205) | 10% +/-6%
(11) | 20% +/-4%
(98) | 32% +/-3%
(325) | |
Don't know/ hard to say | 13% +/-4%
(47) | 8% +/-5%
(9) | 23% +/-4%
(109) | 18% +/-1%
(185) | |
Total | 100%
(354) | 100%
(119) | 100%
(480) | 100%
(1,001) |
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| Commentary
Note: The following commentary has been extracted and enhanced from the comments made by the Director of Public Opinion Programme Dr Robert Chung on 14 December 2009 during a telephone interview segment in the Now TV News Channel programme 「News Magazine」. Some questions are provided by POP.
Q: Would you please describe the latest survey findings briefly?
A: The results show that most people do not support the idea of collective resignation in general. About 25% of them support it but over 50% oppose it. However, in-depth analyses regarding the respondents' self-proclaimed political inclination show that, among those who claimed themselves to be democracy supporters, 40% support the idea while 37% oppose it. It can be regarded as an equal split, with both sides less than half.
Q: The survey findings show that if the democratic Legislative Councilors resign to induce a de facto referendum, nearly half of respondents will not elect them back to the Legislative Council. Does this imply that collective resignation may reduce the democrats' seats in the Legislative Council?
A: This is a technical problem which needs a lot of in-depth analyses. In our survey, among those who claim themselves to be democratic camp supporters, 67% said that they would re-elect the resigned councilors. If we use the layman's so-called 「6:4 golden ratio」, then two-thirds of the 60% 「guaranteed votes for democrats」 will vote them back to the Legislative Council, but this is only 40% of all votes. Since this is less than half, the democrats may lose some seats.
Q: Can this survey show the voting trend of moderate voters?
A: In our latest survey samples, 30% claimed to be democratic camp supporters, 8% claimed to be pro-China camp supporters and 60% said they were moderate or have no political inclination. While the opinion and voting inclination of the pro-China camp supporters regarding collective resignation is predictable, the abundant sources of votes from the 「moderate camp」 will be crucial. The survey results at this stage show that most of them oppose the idea of collective resignation and will not re-elect the resigned councilors. Their inclination is closer to that of pro-China camp supporters.
Q: How can we apply the same analysis to the Government's political reform proposal?
A: Using the same method to analyze our last survey in-depth, it is found that among those respondents who claimed to be democratic camp supporters, 58% oppose the political reform proposal; among pro-China camp supporters, 76% support the political reform proposal; among those who claimed to be moderate or non-aligned, 39% support and 20% oppose the political reform proposal. In other words, over 40% in the moderate camp have not yet declared their position, resulting in an equal one-third split in the overall sample supporting and opposing the reform proposal. The ultimate attitude of these 「moderate」 people will be the critical factor in the final competing of public opinion. |
| Background | Latest Figures | Commentary |
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