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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

The political ecology of Hong Kong is undergoing a rapid change after the Legislative Council election. According to the latest opinion survey published last week by the Public Opinion Programme of the University of Hong Kong, people's dissatisfaction with the current political environment has declined from 60% to 47%, and according to a new survey to be published soon, the popularity rating of Tung Chee-hwa has gone back to 50, first time in two years. Meanwhile, the popularity of the SAR Government is also on the rise. If the SAR Government, the Central Government, our Legislative Councillors, as well the general public really wish to get out of the "all-lose" situation, the golden opportunity is now.

In order to reach a new consensus in the society, of course we need to seek common grounds and reserve differences at the same time. Yet, what are the common grounds? What are the differences? It is best to answer the questions with scientific figures.

The Public Opinion Programme of the University of Hong Kong has conducted a lot of public opinion research and surveys both before and after the election. We have continued our work firmly amidst the political attacks and blackening, as we want to provide timely useful data when the society needs us.

Concerning the misuse and misunderstanding of public opinion polls, the author will talk about them in the future. This article concentrates on discussing the exit poll findings and analyzing the demands of different voters, so as to find a way to reach common grounds and reserve differences. This article mainly examines the characteristics of voters in support of the democratic camp, the pro-China camp and the Liberal Party, yet, individual constituencies will not be involved. Those analyses will be covered from our second to sixth article. The concerned articles will be published starting from tomorrow on a daily basis, except for holidays.

It must be stated that, this article has not adopted political terms such as "pan-democracy camp", "institutional camp" or "pro-government camp", but goes back to the time before the election engineering when relatively neutral and popular categorization was used, including "democratic camp" and "pro-China camp". The author has always adopted definitions widely accepted by the public when writing up research reports and column articles, so that personal political orientations will not be involved. In other words, only if the general public adopts the definitions of "democratic camp" and "pro-China camp", we need not further investigate whether "democratic camp" will be "pro-China", or whether "pro-China camp" will also be "democratic", as these belong to questions of another level. This is some general knowledge of public opinion research and hopefully, readers can understand this.

Among the candidates taking part in this year's election, most of their party affiliations are in fact very clear-cut. However, different researches may have different classifications towards the following lists and thus we need to specify as follows: The "pro-China camp" mentioned in this article includes Rita Fan and Tso Wung-Wai, while "democratic camp" includes Andrew Wong. On the other hand, Wong Kam-Fai, Lau Yuk-Shing, Chow Ping-Tim, Stephen Char, Ng Tak-Leung and Lui Hau-Tuen will neither be classified nor analyzed. This should have little effect on the analysis as a whole.

Another point which needs to be stated is that, the figures used in this article were quoted from the exit poll data obtained from the 101 polling stations on the election day. A total of 9,223 cases have been completed, together with 998 partially completed cases. The response rate was 66.7%. We will not go into the details of the research design of the exit poll here as all information concerning the poll will be fully publicized in the HKU POP website.

Now, let us start with the biggest consensus reached. Table 1 reveals that, over 60% of respondents voted on September 12 to fulfill their civic responsibility. There were not much variations among the 3 camps, and this reason led with quite a margin from the other choices. Voting habitually, improving people's livelihood and accelerating democratic development were all secondary considerations. This reveals that voters generally possessed sound civic awareness. This should be a bit of consensus reached in the society.

However, when voters were asked to choose the candidates' prerequisites between political and economic-social considerations, there were apparent differences between supporters of the democratic camp on one hand, and those of the pro-China camp and the Liberal Party on the other hand. Table 2 reveals that, the two considerations split evenly among the supporters of the democratic camp, whereas the majority of supporters of the other two camps emphasized more on economic and livelihood issues. This was the difference between the pro-democracy and the non-democracy camps. If a method can be found so that the Central People's Government and Hong Kong people will believe that, democracy, freedom, prosperity and stability can co-exist and run neck and neck, then the society will definitely be more united with less internal arguments.

When one takes a look at the background of the 3 main camps' supporters, apparent differences can be found. Table 3 reveals that, voters in support of the pro-China camp were on average older and with lower academic attainment. A relatively higher proportion of them were manual workers and housewives. On the other hand, background of voters in support of the democratic camp and the Liberal Party was highly similar. Around 40% of them were professional executives and have received tertiary education. In other words, although the number of candidates from the Liberal Party and the constituencies involved was small, with only around 7% of overall support rating, while the background of the Liberal Party's supporters was very similar to that of the democratic camp's, the Liberal Party thus had a relative (but not absolute) superiority over the democratic camp among the newly registered voters and first-time voters.

However, if we analyze the political orientation of voters, the differences among the 3 parties were clear. Table 4 shows that, among the voters in support of the democratic camp, 39% of them have participated in the July 1 demonstration, while 8% of the pro-China camp's supporters have also participated in the demonstration. Supporters of the Liberal Party fell in between the two, with a corresponding figure of 14%. Voters in support of the democratic camp were most dissatisfied with the HKSAR Government. The appraisal of the Liberal Party's supporters towards the Government was in the midway but inclined to the negative side, while that of the pro-China camp's supporters was in the midway but inclined to the positive side. Among all voters, only a minority of them showed satisfaction with the HKSAR Government. This may be another consensus.

The most important difference probably lay in the voters' demands towards democracy. Although a respective of 51% and 57% of the democratic camp's voters supported direct elections of the Chief Executive and all Legislative Council members in 2007 and 2008, which was a much higher proportion that those of the Liberal Party's and the pro-China camp's supporters, if we use 2012 as the new watershed, around 70% of the democratic camp's supporters believed the conditions would be mature by then, over half of the Liberal Party's supporters and 40% of the pro-China camp's supporters held the same opinion as well. In other words, this accounted for around 60% of the voters in general. While the demand of direct elections of the Chief Executive and Legislative Council members in 2012 could not be considered as a strong consensus, it should be without much controversy.

Viewing from another angle, over 1.78 million voters fulfilled their civic responsibility and exercised their right to vote on September 12. This, itself, can be considered as a demand for democracy already. In a democratic mechanism, if voters, through elections and referendum, use votes to authorize an absolute leader to rule, that is the voters' free choice. However, if the voters have a clear aspiration, while leaders exercise their own will to distort the public opinion and remain in power, this is definitely unscientific and immoral.

Table 1: Reasons for voting

	Pro-China camp	Liberal Party	Democratic camp	Overall voters
To fulfill civic responsibility	60%	66%	63%	62%
Just a habit / Vote every time	15%	10%	11%	12%
To improve social condition, livelihood and economy	8%	9%	8%	8%
To accelerate democratic development/support direct election	1%	3%	7%	5%

Table 2: Reasons for choosing the candidate

	Pro-China camp	Liberal Party	Democratic camp	Overall voters
Political orientation	25%	25%	44%	37%
Economic and livelihood policies	60%	67%	46%	52%

Table 3: Voters' background - Proportion of:

	Pro-China camp	Liberal Party	Democratic camp	Overall voters
Voters aged 18-29	16%	26%	27%	24%
Voters aged 30-49	40%	48%	49%	46%
Voters aged 50 or above	43%	25%	24%	29%
Voters possessing tertiary education level or above	24%	40%	41%	36%
Executives and professionals	22%	38%	37%	32%
Manual workers	13%	8%	9%	10%
Full-time housewives	15%	10%	11%	12%
Voters who have not voted before	26%	32%	25%	26%
Voters who have registered for less than 4 years	19%	29%	21%	22%

Table 4: Voters' political orientation - Proportion of voters who:

	Pro-China camp	Liberal Party	Democratic camp	Overall voters
Took part in July 1 Demonstration	8%	14%	39%	28%
Supported direct election of CE in 2007	17%	24%	51%	39%
Supported direct election of CE in 2012	26%	31%	19%	22%
Supported direct election of all LC members in 2008	21%	31%	57%	45%
Supported direct election of all LC members in 2012	20%	20%	11%	15%
Were satisfied with HKSARG	29%	11%	5%	13%
Were "half" satisfied with HKSARG	49%	46%	31%	38%
Were dissatisfied with HKSARG	18%	41%	63%	48%