December 1, 2023
HONG KONG – Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee’s approval rating is at its highest since he took office 1½ years ago, a survey by the city’s main pollster has found.
Mr Lee received a vote of confidence from 57 per cent of respondents – the highest proportion since he took up the city’s top job in July 2022 – according to the latest findings from the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute’s (HKPORI) monthly poll.
The poll, conducted from Nov 1 to 15 and released on Nov 21, surveyed 1,004 Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong residents aged at least 18, by phone. It had a 3 per cent margin of error.
Mr Lee received a vote of no confidence from 27 per cent of respondents – the lowest proportion since he became chief executive – and consequently had a net popularity rating of 30 percen
Resident departures outnumbered arrivals by more than 291,000 in the first 7½ months of 2023, the highest level since Hong Kong’s Immigration Department began keeping records in January 2020, Bloomberg reported in August.
Mr Yeung, who is also a journalism lecturer, said the HKPORI survey did not draw much attention in local news as “there is still a strong feeling of political fatigue, helplessness and futility among those who support democracy, which I would say constitute half the population. This is the background against which we may look into these popularity figures”.