Arab News Japan

TOKYO: A survey by the Mainichi newspaper shows that the approval rating for Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio’s Cabinet has dropped to its lowest ever level.

The Cabinet approval rate plummeted by 16 points to 36 percent according to the survey by the Mainichi Shimbun and the Center for Social Research conducted on August 20 and 21.

The Cabinet’s approval rating stood at 52 percent in the previous survey on July 16 and 17. It was the lowest since the Cabinet was inaugurated in October last year.

The disapproval rate was 54 percent, an increase of 17 points from the previous survey.

Since the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July, Kishida has been under pressure to appoint ministers who don’t have connections to the Unification Church. Abe’s killer had a grudge against the Church and Abe, who had shown support for the cult.

When asked if they thought there was a problem in the relationship between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Unification Church (now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification), 64 percent said, “I think there was a serious problem,” and 23 percent said, “I think there was a problem to some extent.”

More than 70 percent of the LDP supporters also answered that there were problems. The sharp drop in the Cabinet’s approval rating is believed to have been influenced by the fact that the relationship between politicians and the former Unification Church has persisted. Kishida’s new Cabinet includes members with links to the Church.