HKU POP releases the latest rankings of political figuresBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,038 Hong Kong people between May 3 and 10 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that Donald Tsang continues to be the most visible political figure in Hong Kong, while Henry Tang and Regina Ip rank 2nd and 3rd, support rates aside. Compared to 6 months ago, 6 people continue to remain on the 'top 10' list. Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-Yan and Audrey Eu who ranked 5th, 8th and 10th last time have fallen out of the list after dropping 6, 4 and 3 places respectively to take the 11th, 12th and 13th places. Besides, Szeto Wah who ranked 7th last time has passed away so is not included in this survey. They are replaced by Regina Ip, Anson Chan, Rita Fan and John Tsang who have risen 10, 4, 7 and 1 places respectively from the 13th, 12th, 16th and 11th places to become the 3rd, 8th, 9th and 10th. It should be noted that the percentage of respondents who could not mention any political figures jumps from 10% half a year ago to 18% this time. These ups and downs are good reflections of our changing political environment, especially near the end of CE's term. If we would like to study long term development, then using overall rankings accumulated over five years would be more appropriate. Figures show that Donald Tsang, Henry Tang, Martin Lee, Leung Kwok-hung and Anson Chan are people's most familiar political figures in the long run. The maximum sampling errors of the maximum sampling error of percentages of people's most familiar political figures is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level. The response rate of the rating survey is 65%.

POP today releases on schedule via the POP Site the survey results of people's most familiar political figures. 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 2010 year-end.

Herewith the contact information of survey on people's most familiar political figures:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Sampling error of percentages[5]
3-10/5/11	1,038	65.3%	+/-3%

This survey on people's most familiar political figures has been conducted for many years, with results initially released through our publication POP Express until October 2006 when we began to release them online. Between 1994 and 2005, the survey was conducted and released in the form of "top 10 political figures" using our usual "top 10" or "top 5" series survey design, which involved both naming and rating stages. Starting from October 2005, we simplified our "top 10 political figures" survey by just recording and analyzing the "naming" results, because we have already developed over time numerous rating surveys covering CE, government officials, members of Legislative and Executive Councils, and so on. As for the rating part, we only conduct supplementary rating surveys to cover those listed in the top 10 political figures but not covered in other rating surveys. Take our latest survey as an example, our supplementary rating survey of Martin Lee, Anson Chan and Rita Fan will be conducted later this month, and the results will be uploaded onto our POP Site as soon as they are ready. Moreover, in our presentation of findings, different from the other "top 10" rating series, we introduced rankings from 1 to 50 for "people's most familiar political figures", as well as average accumulative rankings calculated from the past 10 surveys spanning over about five years, in order to indicate the ups-and-downs of these political figures in the long run. Please refer to our POP Site for details. Herewith the result of our latest survey on "people's most familiar political figures", other rankings beyond the "Top 10" can be found in the POP Site:

Date of survey	19-23/11/09		18-20/5/10		8-12/11/10		3-10/5/11		Average ranking over the past 10 surveys[10]
Sample base[6]	1,001		1,015		1,003		1,038		--
Overall response rate	76.7%		72.5%		67.1%		65.3%		--
Sampling error of percentages (at 95% confidence level)[7]	+/-3%		+/-3%		+/-3%		+/-3%		--
Latest finding/Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	--
Donald Tsang	41%	1	46%	1	56%	1	40+/-4%	1	1.2
Henry Tang	35%	2	33%	4	34%	2	24+/-3%	2	4.2
Regina Ip	27%	4	--	--	--	--	22+/-3%	3	10.0
Leung Kwok-hung	22%[8]	7	34%	3	24%	4	21+/-3%	4	6.1
Wong Yuk-man	22%[8]	6	37%	2	25%	3	20+/-3%	5	21.8
Martin Lee	33%	3	28%	6	22%	6	18+/-3%	6	5.0
Jasper Tsang	24%	7	25%	5	17%	9	17+/-3%	7	10.2
Anson Chan	20%	9	20%	9	--	--	16+/-3%[9]	8	7.7
Rita Fan	--	--	--	--	--	--	16+/-3%[9]	9	12.3
John Tsang	--	--	--	--	--	--	15+/-3%	10	19.9

In our naming survey conducted in the first half of May, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 political figures whom they knew best. Donald Tsang, Henry Tang and Regina Ip were the top three. The corresponding percentages of respondents who could name these figures were 40%, 24% and 22%. Leung Kwok-hung and Wong Yuk-man occupied the 4th and 5th places with corresponding recognition rates of 21% and 20%. The 6th to 10th ranks fell to Martin Lee, Jasper Tsang, Anson Chan, Rita Fan and John Tsang respectively. Their corresponding recognition rates were 18%, 17%, 16%, 16% and 15%. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. For easy reference, POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since March 1997.

Herewith some of the results of our "people's most familiar political figures" surveys accumulated over past 10 surveys spanning over about five years:

18-21/4/06──8-12/11/10[12]							3-6/10/06──3-10/5/11[12]
Overall rank	Pol. figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys		Overall rank	Pol. figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys	Overall rank	Pol. figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys		Overall rank	Pol. figures	Av. rank for 10 surveys
1	Donald Tsang	1.2		11	James Tien	12.8	1	Donald Tsang	1.2		11	Lee Cheuk-yan	12.7
2	Martin Lee	4.6		12	Szeto Wah	13.4	2	Henry Tang	4.2		12	James Tien	14.8
3	Henry Tang	5.2		13	Regina Ip	14.7	3	Martin Lee	5.0		13	Alan Leong	15.1
4	Leung Kwok-hung	6.6		14	Alan Leong	15.4	4	Leung Kwok-hung	6.1		14	Szeto Wah	16.1
5	Audrey Eu	7.8		15	Selina Chow	19.0	5	Anson Chan	7.7		15	Albert Ho	16.7
6	Anson Chan	8.4		16	Albert Ho	19.2	6	Audrey Eu	8.6		16	Tam Yiu-chung	19.5
7	Emily Lau	9.2		17	Tam Yiu-chung	20.1	7	Emily Lau	9.0		17	John Tsang	19.9
8	Jasper Tsang	10.6		18	Wong Yan-lung	21.1	8	Regina Ip	10.0		18	Wong Yan-lung	20.7
9	Rita Fan	11.7		19	Lee Wing-tat	21.8	9	Jasper Tsang	10.2		19	Selina Chow	21.2
10	Lee Cheuk-yan	12.5		20	Tung Chee-hwa	23.2	10	Rita Fan	12.3		20	Wong Yuk-man	21.8

Based on the results of the past 10 surveys, Donald Tsang has the highest overall rank with an average ranking of 1.2. Henry Tang has the 2nd highest overall rank with an average ranking of 4.2. The overall ranks of Martin Lee and Leung Kwok-hung come 3rd and 4th respectively, with average rankings of 5.0 and 6.1. The overall ranks of Anson Chan and Audrey Eu come 5th and 6th with an average ranking of 7.7 and 8.6 respectively. The 7th to 10th overall ranks go to Emily Lau, Regina Ip, Jasper Tsang, Rita Fan, with corresponding average rankings of 9.0, 10.0, 10.2 and 12.3.

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 November 8 to 12, 2010 while this survey was conducted from May 3 to 10, 2011. 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.

30/4/11	The minimum wage policy implements.
8/4/11	Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau resigns.
28/3/11	Commissioner for Labour Cheuk Wing-hing says pay for days off and meal times does not depends on the Minimum Wage Ordinance.
23/3/11	HKSAR government bans a variety of food imports contaminated with radiation from five Japanese prefectures.
9/3/11	The Legislative Council rejects a HK$60.2 billion bill for initial expenditure for the new fiscal year.
2/3/11	Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah announces a budget plan to distribute HK$6,000 cash handouts to all Hong Kong's adult permanent residents.
1/3/11	Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen injured by a protestor.
23/2/11	Financial Secretary John Tsang unveils the annual budget of 2011-2012.
15/1/11	Henry Tang encourages Hong Kong youngsters to be more tolerant of different views in the society.
2/1/11	Szeto Wah has passed away.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "The purpose of our ranking of political figures is to show the changing political ecology by studying the ups and downs of people's familiarity with these figures over time. According to our latest survey, Donald Tsang continues to be the most visible political figure in Hong Kong, while Henry Tang and Regina Ip rank 2nd and 3rd, support rates aside. Compared to 6 months ago, 6 people continue to remain on the 'top 10' list. Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-Yan and Audrey Eu who ranked 5th, 8th and 10th last time have fallen out of the list after dropping 6, 4 and 3 places respectively to take the 11th, 12th and 13th places. Besides, Szeto Wah who ranked 7th last time has passed away so is not included in this survey. They are replaced by Regina Ip, Anson Chan, Rita Fan and John Tsang who have risen 10, 4, 7 and 1 places respectively from the 13th, 12th, 16th and 11th places to become the 3rd, 8th, 9th and 10th. It should be noted that the percentage of respondents who could not mention any political figures jumps from 10% half a year ago to 18% this time. These ups and downs are good reflections of our changing political environment, especially near the end of CE's term. If we would like to study long term development, then using overall rankings accumulated over five years would be more appropriate. Figures show that Donald Tsang, Henry Tang, Martin Lee, Leung Kwok-hung and Anson Chan are people's most familiar political figures in the long run. It should be noted, however, that our ranking of 'people's most familiar political figures' is based on our surveys which requested respondents to name local political figures without prompting. This kind of familiarity measurement is not the same as prompted ratings. 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. However, those who scored best in unprompted surveys are no doubt the most well-known political figures in Hong Kong. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these rankings, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily'."

• May 31, 2011 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and SAR Government