Chief executive candidate Henry Tang Ying-yen yesterday admitted that one of his campaign aides had called Baptist University in connection with a poll that appeared to show him gaining in popularity on his chief rival, Leung Chung-ying.
The call, which Tang said had been made by his communications adviser, Lucy Chan Wai-yee, was placed before data from the unfinished poll was released on Saturday. The preliminary results showed the gap between Tang and Leung at 6.5 per cent of respondents, more than two percentage points narrower than when the poll's full results were released days later.
The early figure was based on returns from 836 respondents on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. But the university continued to poll respondents until Saturday, 1,005 in all. When analysed, the full results showed Leung leading Tang by 8.9 per cent.
Chan's call to the university's HongCOMM Survey Lab has fed media speculation that Tang's camp had attempted to influence the poll's release, a suggestion that the former chief secretary tried yesterday to tamp down.
'Chan Wai-yee called Baptist University because of a media inquiry,' Tang said. 'She asked if there was such a [survey]. I didn't ask [her] which media had called her. I believe even if I did know, I would not tell.'
Meanwhile, the university has appointed Professor Rick Wong Wai-kwok, its vice-president of research and development, to look into the incident with statisticians.
