HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and the HKSAR GovernmentBack

1) The “3.23 Civil Referendum Project” and “3.21 Mock Civil Referendum Project” initiated by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong will proceed as planned. POP now appeals to members of the public to provide free venues for setting up polling stations, including vehicles which can be used for setting up mobile polling stations. People can click on our PopVote website at http://popvote.hk then “tangible support” and then leave their contacts. Also, as of 1pm today, the total amount of donation received is around HKD557,000.

 

2) The “HKU POP Site” hosted by POP (http://hkupop.pori.hk) has just been revamped, in order to facilitate users’ search for more comprehensive and clear information on public opinion research. Feedbacks are welcome.

 

3) The “CE Nomination Guessing Game” hosted by the “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk) of POP has just ended. Users’ final guesses stand at Henry Tang 529 nominations, Leung Chun-ying 238 nominations, and Albert Ho 185 nominations, which is not too far from the real results of Henry Tang 379 nominations, Leung Chun-ying 293 nominations, and Albert Ho 184 nominations. The final winners will be announced at the “PopCon” e-platform soon.

POP interviewed 1,012 Hong Kong people between 20 and 22 February 2012 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey shows that the support rating of CE Donald Tsang is 46.6 marks, down by 1.7 marks from the last survey. His approval rate now stands at 29%, disapproval rate at 64%, giving a net popularity of negative 35 percentage points, which is better than last time, but the effect of CE’s conflict of interest issue has not quite surfaced. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has also dropped compared to one month ago. Its satisfaction rate now stands at 20%, dissatisfaction rate at 53%, giving a net satisfaction rate of negative 33 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that people in the middle and lower classes opposed more to Donald Tsang as CE, while those aged between 30 and 49 are most dissatisfied with the performance of the SAR Government. The maximum sampling error of all percentage figures is between +/-3 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 66%.

POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, the HKSAR Government. 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 mid-year 2011.

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Response rate	Maximum sampling error of percentages[6]
20-22/2/2012	1,012	65.5%	+/-3%

[6] Errors are 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sampling error. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

Recent popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:

Date of survey	14-28/12/11	3-6/1/12	12-17/1/12	1-6/2/12	20-22/2/2012	Latest change
Sample base	1,035	1,007	1,020	1,000	1,012	--
Overall response rate	65.9%	65.1%	64.8%	64.0%	65.5%	--
Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding	Finding and error[7]	--
Rating of CE Donald Tsang	49.0	48.0	49.2	48.3	46.6+/-1.4	-1.7[9]
Vote of confidence in CE Donald Tsang	21%[9]	25%[9]	26%	25%	29+/-3%	+4%[9]
Vote of no confidence in CE Donald Tsang	71%[9]	68%	66%	67%	64+/-3%	-3%
Net approval rate	-50%	-43%	-40%	-42%	-35%	+7%
Satisfaction rate of SARG performance[8]	22%	--	26%	--	20+/-3%	-6%[9]
Dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance[8]	47%	--	45%	--	53+/-4%	+8%[9]
Net satisfaction rate	-25%	--	-19%	--	-33%	-14%
Mean value[8]	2.6+/-0.1 (Base=508)	--	2.7+/-0.1 (Base=552)	--	2.5+/-0.1 (Base=573)	-0.2[9]

[7] 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 rating not more than +/-1.4, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-4% at 95% confidence level” when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[8] Collapsed from a 5-point scale. The mean value is calculated by quantifying all individual responses into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 marks according to their degree of positive level, where 1 is the lowest and 5 the highest, and then calculate the sample mean. Starting from March 2011, this question only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned. The sample size for this series is 583.
[9] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 46.6 marks, and 29% supported him as the Chief Executive. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 20% were satisfied, whereas 53% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 2.5, meaning in between “half-half” and “quite dissatisfied”.

In the survey, we also asked respondents to classify themselves which one of the five social strata they belonged to. The options were: upper, upper-middle, middle-middle, lower-middle and lower stratum or grassroots. According to the choice of respondents, we grouped them into relatively upper, relatively middle and relatively lower strata, or in short form upper, middle and lower strata. Each stratum contains about one-third of the sample. The following table shows the mapping between respondents’ choice and their final grouping:

Self-reported social stratum	Social stratum group
Upper stratum	Relatively upper stratum (about one-third)
Upper-middle stratum
Middle-middle stratum
Lower-middle stratum	Relatively middle stratum (about one-third)
Lower stratum or grassroots	Relatively lower stratum (about one-third)
Don’t know/hard to say/refuse to answer	Unclassified

Herewith further analysis by respondents’ social strata:

Date of survey：20-22/2/2012		Upper class	Middle class	Lower class	Overall Sample
Vote of confidence / no confidence in CE Donald Tsang [10]	Support	38+/-5% (122)	25+/-5% (83)	24+/-5% (77)	29+/-3% (281)
	Oppose	56+/-6% (179)	69+/-5% (229)	68+/-5% (214)	64+/-3% (623)
	Don’t know/ Hard to say	6+/-3% (20)	6+/-3% (19)	7+/-3% (24)	6+/-2% (63)
	Total	100% (321)	100% (331)	100% (315)	100% (967)

[10] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

Besides, in the survey, we also asked respondents for their age. If they were reluctant to give their exact age, they could give us a range. Herewith further analysis of the satisfaction rate of SARG performance by respondents' age:

Date of survey: 20-22/2/2012		18-29	30-49	50 or above	Overall sample
Satisfaction / dissatisfaction rate of SARG performance[11]	Satisfaction	19+/-7% (21)	19+/-5% (45)	21+/-5% (48)	20+/-3% (114)
	Half-half	33+/-9% (36)	20+/-5% (48)	29+/-6% (64)	26+/-4% (148)
	Dissatisfaction	48+/-9% (54)	60+/-6% (145)	47+/-7% (105)	53+/-4% (304)
	Don’t know/ Hard to say	0+/-0% (0)	1+/-1% (2)	3+/-2% (7)	2+/-1% (9)
	Total	100% (111)	100% (240)	100% (223)	100% (574)

[11] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

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 of some items was conducted from 12 to 17 January, 2012 while this survey was conducted from 20 to 22 February, 2012. During this period, 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.

22/2/12	CE Donald Tsang defends himself about recent trips invited by rich friends.
20/2/12	Henry Tang submits 379 nominations from the Election Committee to officially enter race to become chief executive.
19/2/12	Media continues to report whether Jasper Tsang Yok-sing is joining the chief executive race and whether Henry Tang will quit the race.
17/2/12	Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee and Jasper Tsang Yok-sing are considering whether to join the chief executive race.
16/2/12	Chief executive candidate Henry Tang apologises for scandal over illegal structures at his property.
15/2/12	Henry Tang is embroiled in a furore over illegal structures at his Kowloon Tong property.
9/2/12	Leung Chun-ying was accused of failing to declare a conflict of interest in a project competition for the West Kowloon cultural hub.
1/2/12	The Financial Secretary John Tsang announces the 2012-13 Budget.
29/1/12	Financial Secretary John Tsang will announce the Budget speech on 1st February.
24/1/12	Chairman of Heung Yee Kuk Mr Lau divination at Che Kung Temple.
21/1/12	Beijing University professor Kong Qingdong comments many Hong Kong people are dogs.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, “Our latest survey shows that the support rating of CE Donald Tsang is 46.6 marks, down by 1.7 marks from the last survey. His approval rate now stands at 29%, disapproval rate at 64%, giving a net popularity of negative 35 percentage points, which is better than last time, but the effect of CE’s conflict of interest issue has not quite surfaced. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has also dropped compared to one month ago. Its satisfaction rate now stands at 20%, dissatisfaction rate at 53%, giving a net satisfaction rate of negative 33 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that people in the middle and lower classes opposed more to Donald Tsang as CE, while those aged between 30 and 49 are most dissatisfied with the performance of the SAR Government. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgments using detailed records displayed in our ‘Opinion Daily’.”

• March 6, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Top 10 political groups