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CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: OPINION POLLS
1. It is not really my responsibility, but I noticed that the HKG publication "Dateline Hong Kong" (copy attached) refers to a number of opinion polls. Interestingly it also gives the response figures for each poll. These vary from 31 to 49% (the 49% response being from the smallest poll by far).
2. Non-respondents are the bane of political opinion polling. While one's preference for Persil or Omo is unlikely to vary much between respondents and non-respondents the same is not necessarily true for questions of a political nature. It is conceivable that those who refused to answer might be predisposed to a quiet life and therefore prefer a compromise with the Chinese. In the UK it is believed that people tend to be non-respondents if they think their views are politically unacceptable or selfish (eg Conservative voters). In the present situation in Hong Kong it is possible that people may not wish to be seen to be objecting to the proposals of a popular Governor.
3. That is not to say that these polls are not a valuable PR tool (although it would be better if HKG publications did not publish the response rates) but that we should be aware that these polls may not indicate as strong a support for the Governor's proposals as the headline figure suggests. It is possible that if the confrontation with the Chinese were to intensify and this resulted in 25% of the non-respondents switching to support of a compromise, then opinion polls would give healthy majorities against the governor without any of those now supporting his proposals being required to change their minds. All in all I would recommend that a "health warning" be attached to polls such as these.
RAJEnt
RAJ Bunten
12 November 1992
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