HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang,CE-elect CY Leung and principal officialsBack

(1) The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong will host the 65th Annual Conference of the World Association of Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) from June 14 to 16, 2012 at the University of Hong Kong. Highlights of the conference include “the freedom to publish polls”, “Jasmine Revolution”, “exit polling”, “e-democracy”, “Deliberative Polls”, and so on. The conference website is http:///wapor2012.hkpop.hk, intending participants please contact POP.

(2) The "PopCon" e-platform (http://popcon.hk) hosted by POP has already added an "Opinion Forum" page. Users are welcome to share personal opinions on latest social issues, and to win prizes with the credits earned. Current topics of the Forum include the June 4 Vigil, review of minimum wage, opinions on column article “Survey on Ethnic Identity of Hong Kong People” as well as other intensely discussing social issues. Moreover, PopCon Facebook Fan Page has been launched (http://www.facebook.com/popcon.hk). The platform has established a brand new “Prizes every month” scheme since May 29, with cut-off date on the 23rd each month. The first prize of June will be a soon-to-publish commemorative book on “3.23 PopVote project”.

POP interviewed 1,041 Hong Kong people between May 30 to June 6, 2012 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey shows that the support rating of CE Donald Tsang has dropped to 38.5 marks, first time below 40. His approval rate now stands at 15%, disapproval rate at 78%, giving a net popularity of negative 63 percentage points. All figures are his record poor. As for CE-elect CY Leung, his latest support rating is 54.1 marks, approval rate 49%, disapproval rate 39%, meaning that his net popularity has rebounded to positive 10 percentage points, which is still lower than that one month ago. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Stephen Lam is 40.9 marks, reaching the record high since his appointment, his approval rate is 15%, disapproval rate 36%, giving a net popularity of negative 21 percentage points. The popularity of FS John Tsang has not changed much, his support rating is 52.9 marks, approval rate 44%, disapproval rate 16%, giving a net approval rate of positive 28 percentage points. As for SJ Wong Yan-lung, his support rating is 58.9 marks, approval rate 54%, disapproval rate 7%, and his net popularity stands at positive 47 percentage points. Wong Yan-lung remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the approval rate of 1 of the 12 Directors has gone up, 9 have gone down while 2 remain unchanged. Among them, Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam have registered changes in approval rates beyond sampling error, down by 8, 7, 6 and 5 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing and Secretary for Education Michael Suen register negative popularity, at negative 7 and 34 percentage points respectively. Secretary for Development Carrie Lam continues to be the most popular Director. According to POP’s standard, Carrie Lam falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Ambrose Lee, Wong Yan-lung and Matthew Cheung now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Eva Cheng, John Tsang, York Chow, Edward Yau, Tsang Tak-sing and Stephen Lam can be labeled as “mediocre”, that of Denise Yue, Ceajer Chan, Raymond Tam and Gregory So can be labeled as “inconspicuous”, Michael Suen can be labeled as “depressing” and that of Donald Tsang “disastrous”. The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is+/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 64%

POP today releases on schedule via POP SITE the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, CE-elect CY Leung, as well as Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system. 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 2011 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

As different questions involve different sub-samples, the sampling errors will vary accordingly. The table below briefly shows the relationship between sample size and maximum sampling errors for the readers to capture the corresponding changes:

Recent popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and CE-elect CY Leung are summarized as follows:

Recent popularity figures of the three Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system are summarized below:

[10] The frequency of this series of questions is different for different questions, and also different from that of CE popularity ratings. Comparisons, if made, should be synchronized using the same intervals. Starting from 2011, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, the sample size for each question also varies.。
[11] 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 various ratings not more than+/-1.9, 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.
[12] 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.

Figures on the latest popularity ratings of Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system are summarized below

[13] Starting from 2006, these questions only uses sub-samples of the tracking surveys concerned, the sample size for each question also varies.
[14] 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+/-4% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.。
[15] 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.
[16] In one decimal place, the approval rate of Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue was 38.3%, while that of Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan was 37.5%, so that Denise Yue ranks 7th while Ceajer Chan ranks 8th.
[17] In one decimal place, the approval rate of Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam is 33.7%, while that of Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue is 33.5%, so that Raymond Tam ranks 8th while Denise Yue ranks 9th.
[18] In one decimal place, the approval rate of Secretary for Education Michael Suen is 18.0%, while that of Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So is 17.8%, so that Michael Suen ranks 11th while Gregory So ranks 12th.

The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 38.5 marks, and 15% supported him as the Chief Executive, his net approval rate is negative 63%. CE-elect CY Leung scored 54.1 marks, and 49% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is positive 10%. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Stephen Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung were 40.9, 52.9 and 58.9 marks, and 15%, 44% and 54% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are negative 21%, positive 28% and positive 47% respectively.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, results revealed that the top approval rate fell to Secretary for Development Carrie Lam, attaining 73%. Her net approval rate is positive 65%. The 2nd to 4th places belonged to Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung and Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng, with approval rates 55%, 52% and 49% respectively and their net approval rates are positive 41%, 40% and 36% respectively. Secretary for Food and Health York Chow, Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Education Michael Suen and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So ranked 5th to 12th, as they gained 41%, 32%, 31%, 29%, 28%, 26%, 18% and 18% support from the public respectively. Their corresponding net approval rates are positive 14%, positive 22%, positive 19%, positive 16%, positive 4%, negative 7%, negative 34% and positive 1%. In other words, Carrie Lam, Ambrose Lee and Matthew Cheung scored approval rate of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux.

Since this is the last release of all principal officials’ popularity figures during their current term, POP hence tabulates those who were in office continually as CE, their first and ending findings in respective positions for easy reference:

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 May 3 to 10, 2012 while this survey was conducted from May 30 to June 6, 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.

• June 19, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Latest trust and confidence indicators