Surveys on Hong Kong's 2017 political reform are polls apart

The discrepancy in support ratings for the 2017 chief executive election reform proposal in recent surveys could be as large as 20 percentage points, with pollsters attributing the variations to the wording of the questions, polling methods and survey timing.

The Post reviewed the results of surveys conducted by six agencies in February and March and found the support rate for Beijing's ruling on political reform ranged from 40.2 per cent to 60.5 per cent.

Pollsters called on the government to disclose survey details if it decides to conduct a future poll.

In late February, a government source said an internal poll showed that the support rate for passing the reform package stood at 57 per cent. But a spokeswoman for the Central Policy Unit, which commissioned the poll, declined to give details, saying the survey was for the "government's internal reference".

Last month, Albert Chen Hung-yee, a legal academic and member of Beijing's Basic Law Committee, suggested that the government should commission an independent party to find out people's views on whether the package should be approved before it is put to a vote in the Legislative Council before the summer break.

A Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau spokeswoman said last week the government "does not rule out the possibility of commissioning an appropriate agency to conduct an opinion poll in the future if required".

Robert Chung Ting-yiu, director of the public opinion programme at the University of Hong Kong, said he had not been approached by the government.