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Survey findings on views about political parties in Hong Kong released by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at CUHK
A telephone survey was conducted from 29 November to 8 December 2021 by the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s (CUHK) Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies to gauge public views about the political parties in Hong Kong. Of the respondents, 61.5% claimed that they did not support any political parties or organisations in Hong Kong.
Major findings are summarised as follows:
The survey asked the respondents which political party or organisation they supported. 61.5% of the respondents claimed that they did not support any political parties or organisations in Hong Kong. The most supported political party or organisation was the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (6.9%), followed by the Democratic Party (2.8), Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (2.3%) and then Civic Party (2.1%). Generally, 13.7% of the respondents supported the pro-establishment political parties and organisations, while 10.7% supported the pan-democracy and localist political parties and organisations. 14.1% answered “don’t know”.
When they were asked if they were satisfied with the performance of the pro-establishment political parties and organisations, 47.7% expressed their dissatisfaction, 33.8% answered “half-half”, and 13.0% were satisfied. Moreover, 30.1% said they were dissatisfied with the performance of the pan-democracy and localist political parties and organisations, while 45.5% answered “half-half”, and 9.3% were satisfied.
The survey also listed some opinions on different functions and roles of Hong Kong’s political parties and the respondents were asked to indicate their degree of agreement on these opinions. The survey findings indicated that 27.1% of the respondents agreed that many policies could not proceed if political parties did not support the Hong Kong government, while 24.7% disagreed and 32.5% said “half-half”. When the respondents were asked if political parties in Hong Kong could effectively monitor the government, 42.1% disagreed, 18.5% agreed, and 28.0% said “half-half”. Moreover, 39.3% of the respondents disagreed that political parties in Hong Kong could represent different views of the public, while 18.2% agreed and 28.7% answered “half-half”.
The representation of pan-democrat and localist camps in the city’s Legislative Council decreased significantly over the past year. 31.6% of the respondents believed that the effectiveness of the government had not changed in this year. 24.4% thought that the effectiveness had increased and 27.6% felt that it had decreased.
The survey employed a dual-frame sampling design that included both landline and mobile phone numbers. A total of 712 respondents aged 18 or above (landline: 353; mobile: 359) were successfully interviewed, with response rates of 27.5% (landline) and 31.7% (mobile). The sampling error is estimated at plus or minus 3.67 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Weighting of survey data was based on the probability of the respondents being selected via dual-frame sampling design and relevant age-sex distribution of the population published by the Census and Statistics Department.
