Democratic Party losses may mean Hongkongers have lost faith in moderate path, says former chairman
Yeung Sum points to poll indication that three Democrats may fail in September’s Legislative Council elections; he also questions poll’s reliability
How the Democrats fare in the upcoming Legislative Council elections will show whether the moderate and rational approach is still supported by Hongkongers, says former party chairman Dr Yeung Sum as he queried the reliability of a poll which found three of its candidates could face defeat.
Yeung was referring to a rolling poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong’s public opinion programme, which has found that three out of its five candidates running in geographical constituencies are at risk.
The three are Ted Hui Chi-fung running on Hong Kong Island and Lam Cheuk-ting and Andrew Wan Siu-kin in New Territories East and West respectively. All are first-time contestants, forming a candidate list with lawmakers Sin Chung-kai, Emily Lau Wai-hing and Albert Ho Chun-yan respectively. Those in second place are unlikely to win.
Yeung said the sample size of the rolling polls – fewer than 300 respondents in each of the five geographical constituencies – was too small. The pollsters had also failed to mention the second candidate on the list during interviews, which Yeung argued could have made a difference in the results.
“[The research method] has failed to reflect the ‘party effect’,” Yeung said, as voters might consider picking the young Democrats should they know they were running with the veterans.
The party consolidated the results of the HKU rolling polls from August 1 to 10 in a bid to study the trend in a larger sampling size.