HKU POP releases the latest ratings of the Top 10 Legislative CouncillorsBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong conducted a double stage survey on the ranking of Legislative Councillors in between early and mid July, by means of random telephone surveys conducted by real interviewers. Our latest surveys show that compared to three months ago, the popularity of all "'top 10" best known Legislative Councillors has rebounded. In terms of familiarity, Albert Chan who occupied the eighth position last time has dropped out of the list, replaced by Tam Yiu-chung again. In terms of absolute ratings, all Councillors who have remained on the list over last two consecutive surveys have registered increases. Among them, the ratings of Emily Lau, Audrey Eu, Lee Cheuk-yan, Alan Leong, Jasper Tsang, Albert Ho and Regina Ip have increased significantly by 5.9, 5.4, 5.3, 4.4, 3.9, 3.7 and 3.3 marks respectively. In terms of relative rankings, Audrey Eu stays at top position, Alan Leong swaps with Regina Ip to rank second and third, while Emily Lau swaps with Albert Ho to rank fifth and sixth respectively. The relative rankings of all others remaining on the list have not changed. It should be noted however that our list of "'top 10" only includes Legco members who are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other 50 councillors may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are not the most well-known councillors, they do not appear on the "'top 10" list by design. The maximum sampling errors of the ratings registered fall between +/-1.7 and +/-2.6 at 95% confidence level, while the response rate of the rating survey is 66%.

POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of the top ten Legislative Councillors. As a general practice, all 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:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages/ratings [6]
4-7/7/2011 (First stage naming survey)	1,005	67.4%	+/-3%
11-20/7/2011(Second stage rating survey)	1,028	66.4%	+/-2.6

The research design of our "Top 10 Legislative Councillors" has been explained in detail under "Survey Method" in our corresponding web page. The top councillors listed in our latest survey were all those who obtained the highest unprompted mentions in our first stage naming survey conducted in early July. In that survey, respondents could name, unaided, up to 10 legislators whom they knew best. As a result, Wong Yuk-man, Leung Kwok-hung, Regina Ip, Audrey Eu and Lee Cheuk-yan were mentioned most frequently. Please refer to the relevant table for the rest of the list. Those 12 who were named most frequently then entered into the second stage rating survey. During the second stage rating survey conducted in mid July, respondents were asked to rate each legislator 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 legislators in terms of recognition rate were dropped; the remaining 10 were then ranked according to their support ratings attained to become the top 10 Legislative Councillors. For easy reference, the POP Site has already displayed the results of all naming surveys conducted since the year 1998. Recent ratings of top 10 Legislative Councillors are summarized below:

Date of survey	12-15/7/10	14-21/10/10	20-31/1/11	22/4-2/5/11	11-20/7/11	Latest Change
Sample base	1,010	1,013	1,017	1,072	1,028	--
Overall response rate	64.1%	65.4%	67.1%	65.9%	66.4%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding & error[7]	--
Audrey Eu	55.9{2}[9]	62.2{1}[9]	60.5{2}	56.4{1}[9]	61.8{1} +/-1.8	+5.4[9]
Alan Leong	56.2{1}	59.3{4}[9]	60.8{1}	54.8{3}[9]	59.2{2} +/-2.0	+4.4[9]
Regina Ip	--	59.9{2}	57.9{3}[9]	55.4{2}[9]	58.7{3} +/-1.7	+3.3[9]
Jasper Tsang	53.1{7}[9]	55.3{6}[9]	52.6{7}[9]	51.6{4}	55.5{4} +/-1.9	+3.9[9]
Emily Lau	54.3{5}[9]	53.0{8}	55.5{6}[9]	49.5{6}[9]	55.4{5} +/-1.8	+5.9[9]
Albert Ho	55.2{3}[9]	56.7{5}[9]	56.7{4}	51.5{5}[9]	55.2{6} +/-1.9	+3.7[9]
Lee Cheuk-yan	54.7{4}[9]	--	55.7{5}	47.4{7}[9]	52.7{7} +/-2.2	+5.3[9]
Tam Yiu-chung	--	54.4{7}	51.9{8}[9]	48.0[8] [9]	52.2{8} +/-1.9	+4.2[9]
Wong Yuk-man	28.0{9}	33.8{9}[9]	33.6{10}	34.4{9}	36.2{9} +/-2.6	+1.8
Leung Kwok-hung	26.5{10}	31.9{10}[9]	33.8{9}	32.9{10}	35.0{10} +/-2.4	+2.1
Albert Chan	33.6{8}	39.9[8][9]	40.1[8]	39.8{8}	37.9[8] +/-2.3	-1.9
Lee Wing-tat	53.0[8]	--	--	--	54.7[8] +/-2.1	+1.7
James To	--	--	--	51.7[8]	--	--
Tanya Chan	--	57.2[8]	58.3[8]	--	--	--
Andrew Cheng	54.1{6}	59.5{3}[9]	--	--	--	--
Cheung Man-kwong	54.9[8]	--	--	--	--	--

The latest survey showed that Audrey Eu was the most popularly supported councillor attaining 61.8 marks while Alan Leong ranked the second with 59.2 marks. Regina Ip, Jasper Tsang, Emily Lau, Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan and Tam Yiu-chung ranked the 3rd to 8th with 58.7, 55.5, 55.4, 55.2, 52.7 and 52.2 marks respectively. Wong Yuk-man and Leung Kwok-hung ranked the 9th to 10th, attaining 36.2 and 35.0 marks respectively. The mean score obtained by the top 5 councillors was 58.1 marks, while that for the top 10 was 52.2 marks. For this latest survey, Albert Chan and Lee Wing-tat obtained support ratings of 37.9 and 54.7 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 calendar months are tabulated as follows:

Date of survey	14-21/10/10	20-31/1/11	22/4-2/5/11	11-20/7/11	No. of times on top 10	Average rating[10]	Overall ranking[11]
Audrey Eu	62.2	60.5	56.4	61.8	4	60.2	1
Alan Leong	59.3	60.8	54.8	59.2	4	58.5	2
Regina Ip	59.9	57.9	55.4	58.7	4	58.0	3
Albert Ho	56.7	56.7	51.5	55.2	4	55.0	4
Jasper Tsang	55.3	52.6	51.6	55.5	4	53.7	5
Emily Lau	53.0	55.5	49.5	55.4	4	53.3	6
Wong Yuk-man	33.8	33.6	34.4	36.2	4	34.5	7
Leung Kwok-hung	31.9	33.8	32.9	35.0	4	33.4	8
Tam Yiu-chung	54.4	51.9	-	52.2	3	52.8	9
Lee Cheuk-yan	-	55.7	47.4	52.7	3	51.9	10
Andrew Cheng	59.5	-	-	-	1	59.5	11
Albert Chan	-	-	39.8	-	1	39.8	12

The overall rankings in the past 12 months showed that 8 Legislative Councillors have been on the list for four times. They are Audrey Eu in the top rank achieving an average rating of 60.2 marks, Alan Leong, Regina Ip, Albert Ho, Jasper Tsang and Emily Lau who ranked the 2nd to 6th and attained 58.5, 58.0, 55.0, 53.7 and 53.3 marks correspondingly. Wong Yuk-man and Leung Kwok-hung ranked the 7th and 8th, with a respective of 34.5 and 33.4 marks. Tam Yiu-chung and Lee Cheuk-yan have been on the list for three times, attaining 52.8 and 51.9 marks on average, and ranked the 9th and 10th. Andrew Cheng and Albert Chan have been on the list for one time and ranked the 11th to 12th, attaining 59.5 and 39.8 marks correspondingly.

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 provide readers with accurate information so that they can 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 since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the "Opinion Daily" feature page as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from April 22 to May 2, 2011 while this survey was conducted from 11 to 20 July, 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.

4/7/11	Government announces to postpone the vote on the bill to scrap by-elections.
1/7/11	Many newspapers on the following day report the July 1 march.
28/6/11	The replacement mechanism for filling midterm Legislative Council vacancies is revised.
18/6/11	Government to consider rebuild HOS flats.
7/6/11	The Legislative Council investigates the tender process of the "Internet Learning Support Programme".
4/6/11	150,000 people gather at the Victoria Park in remembrance of the 22nd anniversary of June 4th incident.
2/6/11	The government launches the public consultation for building the third airport runway before 2030.
31/5/11	Donald Tsang's flat is reported to have illegal structures in the balcony.
27/5/11	Jeremy Godfrey tells political pressure from the highest official levels for a HK$220 million deal.
1/5/11	Many newspapers discuss the implementation of minimum wage.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed,"Compared to three months ago, the popularity of all "'top 10" best known Legislative Councillors has rebounded. In terms of familiarity, Albert Chan who occupied the eighth position last time has dropped out of the list, replaced by Tam Yiu-chung again. In terms of absolute ratings, all Councillors who have remained on the list over last two consecutive surveys have registered increases. Among them, the ratings of Emily Lau, Audrey Eu, Lee Cheuk-yan, Alan Leong, Jasper Tsang, Albert Ho and Regina Ip have increased significantly by 5.9, 5.4, 5.3, 4.4, 3.9, 3.7 and 3.3 marks respectively. In terms of relative rankings, Audrey Eu stays at top position, Alan Leong swaps with Regina Ip to rank second and third, while Emily Lau swaps with Albert Ho to rank fifth and sixth respectively. The relative rankings of all others remaining on the list have not changed. It should be noted however that our list of "'top 10" only includes Legco members who are best known to the public, ranked according to their support ratings. Some of the other 50 councillors may well have very high or low support ratings, but because they are not the most well-known councillors, they do not appear on the "'top 10" list by design. We leave it for our readers to figure out the reasons for the ups and downs of these popularity ratings using detailed records shown in our "'Opinion Daily" feature page."

• August 2, 2011 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and HKSARG