Poll suggests 'Long Hair' will be defeated by rival pan-democrats
'Long Hair' Leung Kwok-hung could be a casualty of the fierce battle for votes in the New Territories East Legislative Council constituency, an opinion poll suggests.
It indicates less well-known rivals may be overtaking Mr Leung, who is defending the seat he won four years ago.
The decision of the Democratic Party to split its candidates into two slates for this election - they ran on a single slate in 2004 - may lie behind the drop in support for the League of Social Democrats and April Fifth Action member.
The poll also found big fluctuations in support for the major political parties in the other four multi-seat geographical constituencies.
The University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme released results yesterday from rolling polls conducted between August 19 and 27, and compared them with those from polls conducted between August 10 and 18.
Support for Mr Leung has fallen from 7 per cent in the first period to 5.8 per cent in the second period, the results suggest - though the drop is not statistically significant, being within the margin for error of two percentage points for Mr Leung's supporters.
Support for the Democratic Party list headed by Wong Sing-chi rose a statistically significant 2.7 percentage points, to 7.9 per cent, while that for independent Scarlett Pong Oi-lan rose from 3 per cent to 6.1 per cent - also statistically significant. These results suggest Mr Leung will not be re-elected.
Mr Leung said he had been stepping up canvassing. He blamed Mr Wong for diluting his support because the Democrat was targeting young voters, who are part of Mr Leung's support base.
Chinese University academic Ivan Choy Chi-keung said that on top of the young-voter factor, some of those who voted for Mr Leung in 2004 might be drawn to other pan-democrats because they were running on split lists.
The HKU poll also showed statistically significant drops in support for two Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong lists. On Hong Kong Island its support was found to be 16.3 per cent, further dimming Choy So-yuk's chances of re-election. In New Territories East, it still leads, but has dropped 5.9 percentage points.
On Hong Kong Island, the poll suggested independent Lo Wing-lok had overtaken fellow doctor Louis Shih Tai-cho, running mate of Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, and that support for independent democrat Cyd Ho Sau-lan had risen sharply - though all the results were within the survey's margins of error.
Separately, HKU polled 1,996 respondents on what factors would influence how they voted on September 7. Eighty-seven per cent said candidates' livelihood policies were important. Sixty per cent considered their views on political issues such as constitutional affairs and democratic development important, a drop of five percentage points from four years ago. Forty-eight per cent saw relations with Beijing as important.
