The majority of Hong Kong residents expressed their support for Chief Executive Donald Tsang seeking re-election for another term next year, according to a survey by Lingnan University.

The results released yesterday showed as many as 64 per cent of the respondents had backed Tsang's re-election and only 9 per cent voiced their opposition.

Furthermore, 77 per cent of those interviewed said they hoped there would be two candidates contesting in next year's CE election, while 7 per cent thought otherwise.

When asked to make a choice between Tsang and Civic Party's Leong Ka-kit in the election, 63 per cent favoured the former while 11 per cent supported the latter. And 13 per cent said they had not made up their mind.

However, 74 per cent of the interviewees said they would accept it if Tsang was returned uncontested in the election.

The poll was carried out over the telephone by the Public Governance Programme of Lingnan University from November 16 to 20.

As many as 944 Hong Kong permanent residents over the age of 18 were interviewed. Respondents were sampled by random from the telephone directory.