Public trust in the Hong Kong government has dropped 17 percentage points in the past two months, adding to Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's own popularity woes.
A University of Hong Kong poll yesterday disclosed that people's trust in the administration had fallen to 45 per cent compared with 62 per cent in June.
The decline means trust in the Hong Kong administration has now been overtaken by public trust in the central government for the first time since February 2005, and now stands at 49 per cent.
However, trust in the central government has fallen by nine points since June, according to the poll which interviewed 1,065 respondents on August 25 and 26 and carried a margin of error of plus or minus 3 per cent.
The last time trust in the Hong Kong government fell below 50 per cent was in December 2006.
Pollster Robert Chung Ting-yiu said: 'Over the past two months, the success of the Beijing Olympics should have pushed up people's trust in the central government. Instead, it dropped, probably dragged down by the plunging popularity of the local government.'
