HKU POP releases the latest rankings of political figuresBack

Press Release on November 22, 2011

Abstract

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,016 Hong Kong people between November 7 and 17 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. Compared to 6 months ago, 6 people continue to remain on the 'top 10' list. Martin Lee, Jasper Tsang, Anson Chan and John Tsang who ranked 6th to 8th and 10th last time have fallen out of the list after dropping 8, 6, 3 and 5 places respectively to take the 14th, 13th, 11th and 15th places. They are replaced by Leung Chun-ying, Albert Ho, Alan Leong and Lee Cheuk-yan who have risen 16, 9, 6 and 2 places respectively from the 23rd, 17th, 15th and 12th places to become the 7th to10th. The recognition rates of Henry Tang and Leung Chun-ying are at their highest since this series of survey began in 1997. These ups and downs are good reflections of our changing political environment, including the recent District Council elections and the brewing of the Chief Executive election. 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, Leung Kwok-hung, Martin Lee 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, and those high on the list may not be the most supported figures. The maximum sampling errors of the maximum sampling error of percentages of people's most familiar political figures is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level. The response rate of this survey is 64%.

Points to note:
[1] The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
[2] The sample size of the survey on people's most familiar political figures, the sample size is 1,016 successful cases, not 1,016 x 64.3% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[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. When quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places. When quoting these figures, journalists can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level".
[4] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses "computerized random telephone survey" to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

Latest Figures

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 mid-year 2011.

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]
7-17/11/2011	1,016	64.3%	+/-3%

[5] Calculated at 95% confidence level using full sample size. "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.

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 Henry Tang, Rita Fan and Leung Chun-ying 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	18-20/5/10		8-12/11/10		3-10/5/11		7-17/11/11		Average ranking over the past 10 surveys^[9]
Sample base	1,015		1,003		1,038^[7]		1,016		--
Overall response rate	72.5%		67.1%		65.3%		64.3%		--
Sampling error of percentages (at 95% confidence level)^[6]	+/-3%		+/-3%		+/-3%		+/-3%		--
Latest finding/Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank	--
Donald Tsang	46%	1	56%	1	40%	1	40+/-3%	1	1.2
Henry Tang	33%	4	34%	2	24%	2	39+/-3%	2	4.1
Regina Ip	--	--	--	--	22%	3	30+/-3%	3	9.2
Leung Kwok-hung	34%	3	24%	4	21%	4	27+/-3%^[8]	4	5.7
Rita Fan	--	--	--	--	16%	9	27+/-3%^[8]	5	11.9
Wong Yuk-man	37%	2	25%	3	20%	5	25+/-3%	6	17.4
Leung Chun-ying	--	--	--	--	--	--	23+/-3%	7	31.4
Albert Ho	--	--	--	--	--	--	20+/-3%	8	15.5
Alan Leong	--	--	--	--	--	--	19+/-2%	9	14.2
Lee Cheuk-yan	--	--	--	--	--	--	18+/-2%	10	12.1

[6] All error figures in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. "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. Media can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[7] The sub-sample size in the survey conducted in May was 638.
[8] The percentages of respondents who could name Leung Kwok-hung and Rita Fan were 27.4% and 26.7% respectively. Hence Leung ranked the 4th while Fan was placed at 5th rank.
[9] The earliest of the past 10 surveys was conducted on April 17-20, 2007. For each survey, those who ranked 50th or beyond and those not on the list are counted as 50th in our calculation of average rankings.

In our naming survey conducted in the first half of November, 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%, 39% and 30%. Leung Kwok-hung and Rita Fan occupied the 4th and 5th places with corresponding recognition rates of 27% and 27%. The 6th to 10th ranks fell to Wong Yuk-Man, Leung Chun-ying, Albert Ho, Alan Leong and Lee Cheuk-yan respectively. Their corresponding recognition rates were 25%, 23%, 20%, 19% and 18%. 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:

3-6/10/06──3-10/5/11^[10]						17-20/4/07──7-17/11/2011^[10]
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	Lee Cheuk-yan	12.7	1	Donald Tsang	1.2	11	Lee Cheuk-yan	12.1
2	Henry Tang	4.2	12	James Tien	14.8	2	Henry Tang	4.1	12	Alan Leong	14.2
3	Martin Lee	5.0	13	Alan Leong	15.1	3	Leung Kwok-hung	5.7	13	Albert Ho	15.5
4	Leung Kwok-hung	6.1	14	Szeto Wah	16.1	4	Martin Lee	6.0	14	James Tien	15.7
5	Anson Chan	7.7	14	Albert Ho	16.7	5	Anson Chan	8.6	15	John Tsang	16.4
6	Audrey Eu	8.6	16	Tam Yiu-chung	19.5	6	Audrey Eu	9.1	16	Wong Yuk-man	17.4
7	Emily Lau	9.0	17	John Tsang	19.9	7	Regina Ip	9.2	17	Tam Yiu-chung	17.5
8	Regina Ip	10.0	18	Wong Yan-lung	20.7	8	Emily Lau	9.7	18	Szeto Wah	19.9
9	Jasper Tsang	10.2	19	Selina Chow	21.2	9	Jasper Tsang	9.8	19	Selina Chow	22.5
10	Rita Fan	12.3	20	Wong Yuk-man	21.8	10	Rita Fan	11.9	20	Wong Yan-lung/ Tung Chee-hwa	22.6^[11]

[10] For each survey, those who ranked 50th or beyond and those not on the list are counted as 50th in our calculation of average rankings.
[11] The overall ranking among the past 10 surveys of Wong Yan-lung and Tung Chee-hwa is also at the 20th rank.

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 4.1. The overall ranks of Leung Kwok-hung and Martin Lee come 3rd and 4th respectively, with average rankings of 5.7 and 6.0. The overall ranks of Anson Chan and Audrey Eu come 5th and 6th with an average ranking of 8.6 and 9.1 respectively. The 7th to 10th overall ranks go to Regina Ip, Emily Lau, Jasper Tsang and Rita Fan, with corresponding average rankings of 9.2, 9.7, 9.8 and 11.9.

Opinion Daily

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 May 3 to 10, 2011 while this survey was conducted from November 7 to 17, 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.

17/11/11	Henry Tang and Leung Chun-ying said the announcement of their candidacy for next year's Chief Executive Election will be made at the end of this month.
6/11/11	About 1.2 million registered electors have cast their votes in the 2011 District Council election.
26/10/11	Right-of-abode applications for domestic helpers will continue to be withheld.
13/10/11	Donald Tsang regarded legislator Raymond Wong behaved like a "thug" and a "triad" member.
12/10/11	The Chief Executive Donald Tsang announces the 2011-12 Policy Address.
8/10/11	Chief Executive Donald Tsang admits having flaws in dealing with the housing issue.
4/10/11	Henry Tang Ying-yen admitted he had made mistakes in his marital life.
28/9/11	Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang resigned.
18/8/11	The end of Vice Premier Li Keqiang's three days visit to Hong Kong.
1/7/11	Many newspapers on the following day report the July 1 march.
31/5/11	Donald Tsang's flat is reported to have illegal structures in the balcony.

Commentary

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. Compared to 6 months ago, 6 people continue to remain on the 'top 10' list. Martin Lee, Jasper Tsang, Anson Chan and John Tsang who ranked 6th to 8th and 10th last time have fallen out of the list after dropping 8, 6, 3 and 5 places respectively to take the 14th, 13th, 11th and 15th places. They are replaced by Leung Chun-ying, Albert Ho, Alan Leong and Lee Cheuk-yan who have risen 16, 9, 6 and 2 places respectively from the 23rd, 17th, 15th and 12th places to become the 7th to10th. The recognition rates of Henry Tang and Leung Chun-ying are at their highest since this series of survey began in 1997. These ups and downs are good reflections of our changing political environment, including the recent District Council elections and the brewing of the Chief Executive election. 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, Leung Kwok-hung, Martin Lee 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"."

Future Release (Tentative)

29 November, 2011 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of CE and SAR Government