HKU Poll Ends On A Low For Carrie Lam

The University of Hong Kong will stop publishing a high-profile opinion poll measuring the popularity of the Chief Executive from this month - as the public opinion programme that runs the survey closes after 28 years.

The final poll, published last week, found that Carrie Lam's rating had fallen to the lowest level ever for a Hong Kong leader. According to Robert Chung, who heads the programme, her rating has plummeted in the past two weeks.

"In terms of the figures that we have, ratings of the chief executive and also people's levels of support to Mrs Carrie Lam as the chief executive, we are actually seeing a record low of all these figures across all previous chief executives," said Chung, who is retiring from HKU.

"Using this as an indicator, I would say the government of Hong Kong is really facing a governance crisis."

Chung hopes to revive the poll and continue the work of the public opinion programme in a private organisation, but needs to raise HK$6 million for operations in the first year. He hopes to employ all 14 staff who are leaving the public opinion programme.

"It takes about HK$40,000 to run a single survey of a few questions so we are trying very hard to raise this amount of money to kick off the first survey under the new institute. But if we cannot get that money we'll just wait and, perhaps, even stop."