Nearly 60% of Hongkongers uninterested in politics, university survey finds
Political scientists warn widespread lack of interest may harm governance while calling on officials, legislators to better engage public
Nearly 60 per cent of Hongkongers are uninterested in politics, according to a survey by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, with only 3.4 per cent saying they posted or shared “very often” about their political views.
The survey released on Monday also found that more than 80 per cent of respondents rarely or never expressed their views on social affairs to the government, and more than half believed that officials did not care about their views.
Political scientists said the widespread lack of interest could harm governance and called on officials and legislators to engage more widely with the public to understand their concerns.
The phone survey, conducted by the university’s Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, interviewed 708 people to gauge their level of interest in politics from July 31 to August 12 this year.
Some 58.8 per cent of the respondents said they were “not very interested” or “not interested at all” in politics, a drop from 62.9 per cent in last year’s poll.
Conversely, 40.8 per cent said they were “very interested” or “moderately interested”, up 6.6 percentage points from the previous year.