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A telephone survey was conducted from 27 to 30 March 2017 by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to gauge public views about the level of support and rating of the next Chief Executive Carrie Lam right after her election.  736 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 39.8%.  The sampling error is + or –3.61% at a confidence level of 95%.

Major findings are summarized as follows:

The survey results showed that 42.0% of the respondents supported Carrie Lam to be the next Chief Executive while 28.9% did not. 27.4% of them said “in-between”.  Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Wang Guangya, had listed four criteria for the next Chief Executive, including “loving the country and the city”, “being trusted by Beijing”, “being capable of governing” and “winning support from Hong Kong people”. In this survey, 42.7% of the respondents believed that Carrie Lam conformed or highly conformed to these four criteria but 18.6% said she was not. 34.8% answered “in-between”.

The respondents were asked to provide ratings on ten different items for Carrie Lam (from 0 to 100 with 50 for a pass).  Among these item, five of them were on average higher than 50. They were “work capability” (59.5), “uncorrupted and fair (59.2), “care for people’s livelihood” (56.0), and “able to improve Hong Kong economy” (52.3).  The ratings of the remaining five items were found to be lower than 50 and they included “balance of interests between Mainland and Hong Kong” (48.7), “balance of interests between different sectors” (46.7), “protection of Hong Kong freedom and human rights” (44.4), “tolerance of different political forces” (44.3) and “promoting Hong Kong democratic development” (41.2).  Lastly, the respondents were also required to give an overall rating on Carrie Lam and the average was 54.0.

A further analysis of the socio-economic background of the respondents showed that those who aged 51 or above (56.6%) and obtained primary school level or lower (52.1%) were more inclined to support Carrie Lam to be the next Chief Executive. In contrast, those who were male (33.2%), aged 30 or below (56.7%) and obtained tertiary level or above (40.2%) were more inclined not to support her to be the next Chief Executive.  Statistical test (Chi-Square) showed that the differences in sex, age and educational level were statistically significant.

The survey also found that there was no consensus whether Carries Lam could govern Hong Kong well.  31.3% of the respondents were confident that she was able to do so but 30.6% was not. 36.3% said “in-between”.  In the meantime, nearly half of the respondents (47.6%) said they had no confidence whether Carrie Lam could improve relationship with the democratic camp. Only 10.2% believed that she could. 36.6% opined “in-between”.  On the contrary, nearly half of them (47.3%) were confident that Carrie Lam was able to unite the pro-establishment camp while only 8.9% expressed the opposite. 36.0% said “in-between”.