HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, CE-elect CY Leung and the HKSAR Government Back

Starting from mid-April, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong has been releasing the popularity figures of CE and CE-elect together, until the incumbent CE retires. This arrangement was first practiced in December 1996 when CH Tung became CE-elect, and has been practiced ever since. To survey the "approval/disapproval rate" of the incumbent CE and the CE-elect, the question used is "If a general election of the Chief Executive were to be held tomorrow, and you had the right to vote, would you vote for XXX?". This question was introduced in 2002, and has been used continually ever since. On the pros and cons of this design, please refer to the article "New Perspectives on Chief Executive Ratings" under "POP Column" in our POP Site. The article was published on 12 June 2003.

POP interviewed 1,034 Hong Kong people between 17 and 23 April 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 44.9 marks, pretty much the same as that of last survey. However, his approval rate now drops to 20%, disapproval rate increases to 72%, giving a net popularity of negative 52 percentage points. These are the poorest figures since he became CE. As for CE-elect CY Leung, his latest support rating is 54.0 marks, approval rate 48%, disapproval rate 39%, meaning that his net popularity stands at positive 9 percentage points, further widening his lead over CE Donald Tsang. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has dropped significantly compared to one month ago. Its satisfaction rate has gone down by 5 percentage points to 22% while dissatisfaction rate up by 5 percentage points to 48%, giving a net satisfaction rate of negative 26 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that older people and those with lower social stratum tend to support CY Leung as CE more. 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 65%.

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 2011 year-end.

[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, CE-elect CY Leung and people's satisfaction of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government are summarized as follows:

[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 538.
[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 44.9 marks, 20% supported him as the Chief Executive, his net approval rate is negative 52 percentage points. CE-elect Leung Chun-ying scored 54.0 marks, and 48% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is positive 9 percentage points. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 22% were satisfied, whereas 48% were dissatisfied. The mean score is 2.6, 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:

Herewith further analysis by respondents' social strata:

[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 support rate of Leung Chun-ying as Chief Executive by respondents' age:

[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 16 to 21 March, 2012 while this survey was conducted from 17 to 23 April, 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.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, observed, "The survey shows that the support rating of CE Donald Tsang is 44.9 marks, pretty much the same as that of last survey. However, his approval rate now drops to 20%, disapproval rate increases to 72%, giving a net popularity of negative 52 percentage points. These are the poorest figures since he became CE. As for CE-elect CY Leung, his latest support rating is 54.0 marks, approval rate 48%, disapproval rate 39%, meaning that his net popularity stands at positive 9 percentage points, further widening his lead over CE Donald Tsang. As for the SAR Government, its popularity has dropped significantly compared to one month ago. Its satisfaction rate has gone down by 5 percentage points to 22% while dissatisfaction rate up by 5 percentage points to 48%, giving a net satisfaction rate of negative 26 percentage points. Indepth analysis shows that older people and those with lower social stratum tend to support CY Leung as CE more. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using detailed records displayed in our "Opinion Daily"."