Most Hongkongers want Occupy to end now, says DAB poll
Executive councillor defends survey, which some have criticised because party staff conducted it
Two-thirds of Hongkongers want the Occupy protests to "end immediately", an opinion poll conducted by the city's largest pro-establishment party has found.
Staff from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong personally interviewed 5,531 residents aged 12 or above last month. They also found that 77 per cent of Hongkongers agreed that police should clear the occupation sites when the time is right.
However, an activists' leader questioned the validity of the poll, which was conducted by DAB district office staff.
Daisy Chan Sin-ying, convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front, said: "According to our volunteers, some residents or business owners in the protest sites are actually sympathetic towards the Occupy movement."
She dismissed the call for protesters to leave, as Beijing had failed to retract its restrictive framework for the 2017 chief executive election.
On why the party did not commission an independent body to conduct the poll, DAB vice-chairwoman and executive councillor Starry Lee Wai-king explained that they wanted to "understand the residents' [opinion] directly".