Hongkongers' trust in CY Leung and Beijing at a lower point now than during Occupy Central
Drop comes after Beijing's top man in HK said chief executive has special legal status
Hongkongers' trust in the central government is at its lowest in a year amid a recent claim by Beijing's top man in the city that the chief executive has a special legal status "transcending" all three branches of government, a Chinese University poll shows.
Only 21.5 per cent of the 762 respondents indicated "trust" in Beijing, down from 25.6 per cent last month, according to the poll findings, released yesterday.
The percentage was at its lowest since last September , when only 19.8 per cent expressed trust in the central government.
In terms of distrusting Beijing, 40.6 per cent said yes this time, up from 34.9 per cent last month.
The poll was conducted by the university's Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies from Monday to Thursday last week, just over a week after Zhang Xiaoming, director of Beijing's liaison office, said the chief executive was in a "special legal position that transcended" the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
Zhang also said the concept of separation of powers was confined to sovereign states and could only serve as a reference for Hong Kong. His remarks sparked public fears Beijing was tightening its grip on the city's affairs.
In the same Chinese University poll, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying scored 40.1 out of 100 overall on his performance, down from 42.7 last month.
It was also his lowest score since October last year, when he got 38.6. The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 3.55 percentage points at 95 per cent confidence level.
Similarly, a separate poll conducted by the University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme found the number of respondents who would cast a vote of confidence in Leung had fallen to 20 per cent, from 25 per cent in the last survey in June.
Out of 100, Leung scored 39.2 in his popularity rating, down from 41.4, according to the September 16-22 poll, in which 1,018 people were interviewed.
It also found a sharp fall in public satisfaction in five major policy areas of the government. Only 22 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the government's efforts in improving livelihoods, down 12 percentage points from June.
The satisfaction rate for the government's work in maintaining economic prosperity fell from 36 per cent to 29 per cent.
The sampling error of the HKU poll was plus or minus 4 percentage points at 95 per cent confidence level.
