Arab News Japan

TOKYO: In an opinion poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, the approval rating of Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio’s cabinet remained generally unchanged at a lowly 26 percent.

While that figure represented a gain of one point from the previous poll, the approval level has now been less than 30 percent for seven consecutive months, while the disapproval rating remains over 60 percent at 63 percent.

When asked who the next leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party should be, the prime minister came in fourth. Veteran politician ISHIBA Shigeru was in first place with 22 percent, with former Environment Minister KOIZUMI Shinjiro second on 16 percent. Digital Minister KONO Taro came in third with 10 percent. 

The Liberal Democratic Party has been hit hard by a political funds scandal, mainly affecting the prime minister’s faction in the party, and the public has voiced its disapproval of the action taken by the government that is meant to prevent further scandals.

Regarding the revision of the Political Funds Control Law, 79 percent of respondents said they did not approve of the government’s action, far exceeding the 14 percent who said they did approve. 

Seventy percent of respondents said they did not think that amending the regulatory law would solve the series of problems between politics and money, although 22 percent said they thought it would.

Support for political parties stood at 27 percent for the Liberal Democratic Party (24 percent last time), 7 percent for the Constitutional Democratic Party (5 percent last time), 4 percent for the Japan Restoration Party (4 percent last time), and 46 percent for independents (51 percent last time).