Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen is gaining increasing support from self-styled democrats for his re-election, according to a Hong Kong University poll this week. Asked to rate the suitability of the two candidates - Mr Tsang and the Civic Party's Alan Leong Kah-kit - for the top job, the 264 members of the public who described themselves as 'pro-democracy' gave Mr Tsang a rating of 65 out of 100. This was 3.4 points more than in a poll at the beginning of the month. Mr Leong scored 55, virtually unchanged from the last poll. Support from this group for Mr Tsang, in a hypothetical vote, also increased from 52.4 per cent to 58 per cent, but within the margin of error, which was 6 percentage points. Support for Mr Leong slipped from 39 per cent to 35.6 per cent, also within the margin of error. Overall support for Mr Tsang, from the 1,013 respondents in the survey, remained unchanged at 73 per cent. Support for Mr Leong slipped 2.3 percentage points to 15.8 per cent. Pollster Robert Chung Ting-yiu noted that Mr Leong's support among the more educated and professionals - which had favoured him - slipped in the past week.
