HKU POP releases popularity figures of CE and principal officialsBack

(1) “South Korean Presidential Election 2012 Guessing Game” launched

The “PopCon” e-platform (http://popcon.hk) hosted by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong launched a new game called “South Korean Presidential Election 2012 Guessing Game” in late November. Users can now make guesses on the vote share of the South Korean Presidential Election due to take place on December 19 this year, in order to earn credits and win prizes. Guessing figures will be released real time until the last minute of the game (i.e. 23:59 on December 18). Over 600 guesses have been received so far and the accumulated Popcoins reaches 67,265. The latest situation is Moon Jae-in and Park Geun-hye leading the other 5 candidates by a large margin, both with 42% of vote share. Besides, POP is recruiting a team of “Friends of POP” to demonstrate civil power. “Friends of POP” 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.

(2) Year-end Review

Since the figures released by POP at the “HKU POP SITE” (http://hkupop.pori.hk) today regarding the popularity of principal officials (excluding CE) come from the last tracking survey on this topic conducted by POP in 2012, they are good for year-end stories. Moreover, a chronology of major events as reported by the local newspapers over the past many years can be found in the “Opinion Daily” at the “POP Site”. This may also be useful in running year-end reviews.

POP interviewed 1,006 Hong Kong people between December 1 to 4, 2012 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. Our latest survey conducted after the Chief Executive CY Leung responded in writing on his illegal construction works but before he was questioned in Legco shows that his popularity drops again, but that of his cabinet generally goes up. According to our survey, compared to two weeks ago, the support rating of CE CY Leung has gone down significantly by 3.1 marks to 49.2 marks, with an approval rate of 37%, back to the level registered in second half of October. His net popularity now stands at negative 12 percentage points. As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 63.2 marks, her approval rate 62%, disapproval rate 9%, giving a net popularity of positive 53 percentage points. Latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 58.6 marks, approval rate 56%, disapproval rate 12%, giving a net approval rate of positive 44 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 53.1 marks, approval rate 32%, disapproval rate 11%, and his net popularity stands at positive 21 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 6 of the 12 Directors have gone up, 4 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, only Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing has registered significant increase in net approval rate, up by 10 percentage points. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan register negative popularity, at negative 19 and 27 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director. According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Matthew Cheung, Carrie Lam, John Tsang and Lai Tung-kwok now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Ceajer Chan, Anthony Cheung, Tsang Tak-sing, CY Leung, 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 66%.

[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 +/-1.6, 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 +/-5% 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 +/-7% 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 49.2 marks, and 37% supported him as CE, his net approval rate is negative 12 percentage point. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Carrie Lam, FS John Tsang and SJ Rimsky Yuen were 63.2, 58.6 and 53.1 marks, and 62%, 56% and 32% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. Their net approval rates are positive 53, 44 and 21 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 74 percentage points. The 2nd to 4th places belong 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 51, 48 and 42 percentage points respectively. Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung, Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, 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 35, positive 23, positive 22, positive 21, positive 16, positive 11, negative 19 and negative 27 percentage points. In other words, only Ko Wing-man and Matthew Cheung 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 1 to 8 November, 2012 while this survey was conducted from 1 to 4 December, 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 Chief Executive CY Leung responded in writing on his illegal construction works but before he was questioned in Legco shows that his popularity drops again, but that of his cabinet generally goes up.

According to our survey, compared to two weeks ago, the support rating of CE CY Leung has gone down significantly by 3.1 marks to 49.2 marks, with an approval rate of 37%, back to the level registered in second half of October. His net popularity now stands at negative 12 percentage points.

As for the Secretaries of Departments, the latest support rating of CS Carrie Lam is 63.2 marks, her approval rate 62%, disapproval rate 9%, giving a net popularity of positive 53 percentage points. Latest support rating of FS John Tsang is 58.6 marks, approval rate 56%, disapproval rate 12%, giving a net approval rate of positive 44 percentage points. As for SJ Rimsky Yuen, his support rating is 53.1 marks, approval rate 32%, disapproval rate 11%, and his net popularity stands at positive 21 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 6 of the 12 Directors have gone up, 4 have gone down and 2 remain unchanged. Among them, only Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing has registered significant increase in net approval rate, up by 10 percentage points. Among all the Directors, only Eddie Ng and Paul Chan register negative popularity, at negative 19 and 27 percentage points respectively. Ko Wing-man continues to be the most popular Director.

According to POP’s standard, Ko Wing-man falls under the category of “ideal” performer, Matthew Cheung, Carrie Lam, John Tsang and Lai Tung-kwok now fall under the category of “successful” performer. The performance of Ceajer Chan, Anthony Cheung, Tsang Tak-sing, CY Leung, 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 Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung was 62.0%, while that of CS Carrie Lam was 61.6%.
[18] In two decimal places, the approval rate of FS John Tsang was 56.11%, while that of Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok was 56.06%.
[19] In two decimal places, the approval rate of Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan was 47.92%, while that of Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung was 47.90%.

• December 18, 2012 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Popularity of disciplinary forces