Only 61.3 percent of local residents believe that they can elect lawmakers in a “fair” and “just” manner, while 55.5 percent believe that the current method of electing the chief executive is unfair, according to the results of a survey released by the Macau Civic Power group yesterday.
Agnes Lam Iok Fong, the think tank’s chairperson in charge of the survey known as Civil Society Index (CSI), said it was conducted between March 18 and 22, when researchers successfully interviewed 1,008 local respondents aged at least 18 through computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).
Asked by reporters about the reason why respondents expressed those views, Lam replied she did not dig deeper into the matter as the survey was to find out how respondents answer its questions. “The research is not about Macau’s political system… what we are doing is to illustrate how respondents look at the issues,” Lam was quoted by The Macau Post Daily as saying, adding she planned to conduct a follow-up survey to find out the reason for their views.
The results also show that respondents generally do not think that government bureaus and departments can remain free from corruption, giving them an average mark of 5.46 on a scale of 0 to 10. Their level of trust in the chief executive is not high either, only at 5.9. However, this is still higher than the respondents’ level of trust in legislators, which stands at a mere 5.48.
Lam also said the survey was conducted based on the methodology provided by Civicus, an international organization devoted to increasing the level of civic participation in social affairs. She added that the findings will be sent to Civicus plus local and Hong Kong academics so that they can be professionally reviewed. Lam, a University of Macau academic and unsuccessful candidate in this year’s direct legislative election, said the complete report would be made available as soon as this is done. (macaunews)
