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A telephone survey was conducted from 24 to 26 June 2015 by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to gauge public views on Hong Kong’s political future after the Legislative Council had vetoed the government’s political reform package on 18 June 2015.  760 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 47.9%.  The sampling error is + or – 3.55 percentage points at a confidence level of 95%. 

Major findings are summarized as follows: 

In the current survey, three-fifth of the 760 respondents (59.6%) agreed that the government should focus their efforts on economic development and livelihood issues rather than on political reform in the coming three years, while 15.2% disagreed and 23.2% reported “in-between”.  They were also asked about their opinion on the likelihood of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC) to retract or change its decision made on 31 August 2014 concerning the political reform in Hong Kong.  Half of the respondents (50.1%) thought that it is not likely or only slightly possible for NPCSC to retract or change its decision.  Almost a quarter of the respondents (23.8%) deemed it entirely impossible to happen.  10.2% and 3.7% believed that the likelihood for it to happen is somewhat high and very high respectively. 

When asked to evaluate the political future of Hong Kong in the coming three years, more than two-fifth of the respondents (46.4%) were not optimistic, 12.4% answered otherwise, and 38.5% indicated “in-between”. 

When asked if the political reform process should be re-launched or not, 42.8% of the respondents held that the current-term government should re-launch the political reform process, while 45.5% said otherwise.  Among the 433 respondents who either thought the political reform process should not be re-launched within this government term or had no preference, 41.3% considered that it should be re-launched by the government in the next term and 30.7% thought otherwise. 

While 30.9% of all respondents expressed that the pan-democracy camp should be responsible for the failure of the political reform, 24.2% and 20.9% believed that the failure should be attributed to the Central Government and the HKSAR Government respectively.  10.0% suggested that it was the pro-establishment camp who should be held responsible.