Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's popularity has fallen further, a Hong Kong University poll found.
The telephone poll, carried out between June 13 and 18 by the University's Public Opinion Programme, also found more than half of the 1,043 respondents were not satisfied with the performance of the government.
Mr Tung's rating has fallen by two percentage points since a poll between June 3 to 6, to 43.7 points out of a possible 100. More than 48 per cent of respondents were also dissatisfied with Mr Tung's policies, while 14.1 per cent approved of them. The figures in the previous poll were 49.8 per cent and 13.3 per cent.
Discontent with the overall performance of the government remained high, at 53.5 per cent. The previous figure was 52.5.
Robert Chung Ting-yiu, director of the programme, said: 'This shows that the positive impact brought by the alleviation of Sars has begun to be overridden by other news. The surge in unemployment and the Article 23 legislation are now in the limelight.'
The survey found public trust in the government has risen by 5 percentage points, from 26.9 per cent last month to 32 per cent. But 41.2 per cent said they did not trust it.
