HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

PopCon users accurately predict Barack Obama re-elected as US President

The final guesstimates for the “US Presidential Election 2012 Guessing Game” put Barack Obama in the lead over Mitt Romney with 290 versus 248 electoral votes. This guessing game was launched by the “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk) hosted by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong. Over 300 guesstimate submissions have been received, and the accumulated bonus Popcoins now stands at 39,615. The winners will be announced in due course. Besides, POP is recruiting a team of “POP friends” to demonstrate civil power. “POP friends” will be invited to participate in supporting various research activities organized by POP, including civil referendums (POPVOTE 3.23 mobilized about 300 citizens), election exit polls (LC election studies mobilized about 250), rally head-counting (July 1st rally mobilized about 50), as well as facilitating online research. The first round of recruitment will end on December 31, 2012. Interested citizens are welcome to register at “PopCon” e-platform.

POP interviewed 1,028 Hong Kong people between November 1 to 8, 2012 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey conducted after the announcement of the new housing policies shows that the popularity of CY Leung’s cabinet has generally rebounded. The SAR Government should make use of this opportunity to rally people’s support carefully. According to our survey, the support rating of CE CY Leung has gone up to 53.0 marks, with an approval rate of 42%, back to the level of mid-July. His net popularity now stands at negative 1 percentage point. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 62.2 marks, her approval rate is 62%, disapproval rate 12%, giving a net popularity of positive 50 percentage points. Latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 58.0 marks, approval rate 58%, disapproval rate 11%, giving a net approval rate of positive 47 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 51.5 marks, approval rate 29%, disapproval rate 11%, and his net popularity stands at positive 18 percentage points. Carrie Lam remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rate of 8 of the 12 Directors have gone up, 3 have gone down and 1 remains unchanged. Among them, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So have registered significant drops in net approval rates, down by 11 and 7 percentage points respectively, while Secretary for Development Paul Chan, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan and Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man have registered significant increases in net approval rates, up by 8, 8, 7 and 5 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan register negative popularity, at negative 22 and 27 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director. The new housing policies seem to have positive impact on the popularity of related officials including CY Leung, Carrie Lam, John Tsang, Paul Chan, Ceajer Chan and Anthony Cheung. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam, Matthew Cheung, John Tsang, Lai Tung-kwok and Ceajer Chan now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Anthony Cheung, CY Leung, Tsang Tak-sing, Wong Kam-sing, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan can be labeled as “mediocre”, and that of Raymond Tam, Rimsky Yuen, Gregory So and Paul Tang can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. No one falls into the category of “depressing” or “disastrous”. The maximum sampling errors of all approval and disapproval rates is +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures and net approval rates need another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 65%.

[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 and net approval rates are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.

[7] Based on 95% confidence interval.

[8] 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 +/-1.5, sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3%, sampling error of net approval rates not more than +/-6% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures. The error margin of previous survey can be found at the POP Site.
[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.

[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%, sampling error of net approval rates not more than +/-6% 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.

Latest popularity figures of Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system are summarized below, in descending order of net approval rates:

[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% and sampling error of net approval rates not more than +/-6% 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 respective net approval rates of Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan are 47.4 and 47.3 percentage points, while that of Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam are 22.2 and 21.4 percentage points. Thus, they are ranked third, fourth, sixth and seventh respectively.

The latest survey showed that, CE CY Leung scored 53.0 marks, and 42% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 1 percentage point. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 62.2, 58.0 and 51.5 marks, and 62%, 58% and 29% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 50, 47 and 18 percentage points respectively.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, according to the net approval rates, results revealed that the top position goes to Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man, attaining positive 75 percentage points. The 2nd to 4th places belonged to Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung, Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan with net approval rates positive 48, 47 and 47 percentage points respectively. Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for the Civil Service Paul Tang, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng and Secretary for Development Paul Chan ranked 5th to 12th, their corresponding net approval rates are positive 37, positive 22, positive 22, positive 13, positive 12, positive 9, negative 22 and negative 27 percentage points. In other words, only Ko Wing-man scored net approval rate of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux.

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 4 to 10 October, 2012 while this survey was conducted from 1 to 8 November, 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.

Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung.

Our latest survey conducted after the announcement of the new housing policies shows that the popularity of CY Leung’s cabinet has generally rebounded. The SAR Government should make use of this opportunity to rally people’s support carefully.

According to our survey, the support rating of CE CY Leung has gone up to 53.0 marks, with an approval rate of 42%, back to the level of mid-July. His net popularity now stands at negative 1 percentage point.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 62.2 marks, her approval rate is 62%, disapproval rate 12%, giving a net popularity of positive 50 percentage points. Latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 58.0 marks, approval rate 58%, disapproval rate 11%, giving a net approval rate of positive 47 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 51.5 marks, approval rate 29%, disapproval rate 11%, and his net popularity stands at positive 18 percentage points. Carrie Lam remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the net approval rate of 8 of the 12 Directors have gone up, 3 have gone down and 1 remains unchanged. Among them, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So have registered significant drops in net approval rates, down by 11 and 7 percentage points respectively, while Secretary for Development Paul Chan, Secretary for Education Eddie Ng, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan and Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man have registered significant increases in net approval rates, up by 8, 8, 7 and 5 percentage points respectively. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan register negative popularity, at negative 22 and 27 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director. The new housing policies seem to have positive impact on the popularity of related officials including CY Leung, Carrie Lam, John Tsang, Paul Chan, Ceajer Chan and Anthony Cheung.

According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Carrie Lam, Matthew Cheung, John Tsang, Lai Tung-kwok and Ceajer Chan now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Anthony Cheung, CY Leung, Tsang Tak-sing, Wong Kam-sing, Eddie Ng and Paul Chan can be labeled as “mediocre”, and that of Raymond Tam, Rimsky Yuen, Gregory So and Paul Tang can be labeled as “inconspicuous”. No one falls into the category of “depressing” or “disastrous”.

The following table summarizes the grading of CE and the principal officials for readers' easy reference:

[17] In one decimal place, the approval rate of Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing was 37.4%, while that of Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing was 37.3%.

• November 20, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Ratings of top 10 political groups