HKU POP SITE releases POP-NOW surveyon political reform for the sixth timeBack

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 the "now News Channel" 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 the "now News Channel", followed by POP press releases for public consumption. "now News Channel" agrees to POP uploading these programmes to the POP Site for public education, while POP agrees that "now News Channel" uses these findings for productions without POP's involvement. There has been a total of five releases of survey findings from December 2009 to January 2010. Today we release the results of our latest survey. Please cite the source of the figures when using them.

Results showed that 9% of respondents were knowledgeable about the discussions on the selection of the Chief Executive and the forming the Legislative Council in 2012, 70% said they knew little about the issue. The mean quantified score is 1.9, which is about "quite little". 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 41% 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 39%, versus 32% opposition. The mean quantified scores for both questions are 3.0, which means "half-half". Latest findings of other survey questions are as follows:

Results showed that 27% supported the resignation of the five legislative councilors from Civic Party and League of Social Democrats to induce a de facto referendum on public support towards the political reform proposals, 58% opposed it. The mean quantified score is 2.4, which means "quite oppose". If the resigned legislative councilor of one's constituency would join the by-election, 33% said they would elect him/her to return the Legislative Council, 55% said they would not.

Note: The following commentary is extracted and enhanced from the comments made by the Director of Public Opinion Programme Dr Robert Chung on February 8, 2010 in the "now News Channel" programme "News Magazine", in the "now Survey on Political Reform" segment. Some questions and answers are provided by POP.

Q: What inspiration do we have from the findings?

A: Putting all question together, the most disappointing finding is that people's knowledge in political reform has actually gone down instead of up. When the consultation document was first released, 68% said they knew little about the political reform proposal. One would have expected that people's knowledge would have increased, towards the end of the consultation period after a series of discussions and mobilization. However, our recent survey shows that the percentage of respondents claiming little knowledge about the proposals have actually gone up from 68% to 70%, while those who said they know it well is still less than 10%. Obviously, many people share this responsibility. The issue of "de facto referendum" has stolen the limelight almost immediately after the reform proposals were released. Those who initiated the referendum movement, the HKSAR government who hosts the consultation, as well as those supporting the government, have not made good use of the time available to discuss the development of democracy in Hong Kong.

Q: Do you mean that people are simply fighting against each other without a focus?

A: The focus is wrongly placed, to be appropriate. The "de facto referendum" movement may be a means to spark public discussion, but there is little content on the discussion of democratic development in Hong Kong. Survey showed that after the retention or abolition of functional constituencies becomes an issue, there is really a change in people's attitude. For other topics, like the retention or abolition of appointed seats, they are discussed even less.

Q: Does it mean that more people are opposing the government proposals?

A: In our survey released today, the label of "government" is avoided in both questions. We only asked part of the methods proposed for selecting the Chief Executive and for forming the Legislative Council. At the beginning of consultation period, 43% respondents supported the method for selecting the Chief Executive; after a few months, the support rate is 41%, so there is not much change. However, there is not much change in the opposition rate too, which lies at thirty something percent. As for the method for forming the Legislative Council, since there are more discussions about functional constituencies, support rate has fallen from 43% to 39%, while opposing rate has gone up from 28% to 32%. It can be said that, the government proposal still receives more support, but opposition is on the rise.

Q: How would you interpret the 8% rise in people's opposition to the "de facto referendum", and that more people said they would not vote for the resigned councilors?

A: Regarding the concept of "de facto referendum", the ratio of support versus opposition is about 1:2 at the beginning. The ratio has remained the same in our recent survey, where the support rate is 27%, and opposition rate is 58%. In between the two surveys, many things happened, including the resignation of five legislative councilors from Civic Party and League of Social Democrats, denunciation by the Central Government, and boycotting of the by-elections by the pro-government camp. However, all these have not affected the 1:2 ratio. As for the issue of returning the resigned legislative councilor to the Legislative Council, the ratio of positive versus negative answers is 3:4 at the beginning, it is 3:5 now. If these figures are to be converted into real votes, the resigned councilors may not be able to return to the Legislative Council. However, people who oppose the "de facto referendum" seem unlikely to join the by-elections, nor are they likely to vote. The chance of the resigned legislative councilors returning to the council therefore becomes very high. Nevertheless, there may be another round of debate on how to interpret the turnout rate in order to carry the motion of the self-proclaimed and self-binding de facto referendum.

Q: Will public opinion change again?

A: From a positive perspective, discussion driven by the by-elections and referendum movement will continue, even after the end of the consultation period. The way the government collates the public submissions and analyze public opinion may spark off another wave of discussion, thereby changing public opinion. If people would continue to discuss the development of democracy, it would be a good thing. On the contrary, if any party stops discussing political reform because it opposes the referendum movement or does not compete in the by-elections, precious space for public discussions would be wasted.