Approval ratings for Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba have fallen ahead of a general election on Sunday, one weekend poll showed, with another survey suggesting the ruling coalition could struggle to secure a majority.
Former Japanese minister of defense Ishiba took office this month after being voted leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power for most of Japan’s post-war history.
Scandals over funding and LDP lawmakers’ ties to the Unification Church — compounded by voter discontent over rising prices — caused the party’s ratings to plummet during the tenure of Ishiba’s predecessor, former Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida.
Photo: Bloomberg
A Kyodo News survey on Saturday and Sunday put the approval rating for Ishiba’s Cabinet at 41.4 percent, down from 42.0 percent a week earlier.
The disapproval rating was 40.4 percent in the most recent survey of 1,260 voters, Kyodo said on Sunday. Disapproval in the previous poll was 36.7 percent.
“This election will be really tough and difficult for us,” Ishiba told voters in a campaign speech last week.
A separate weekend survey by the liberal-leaning Asahi Shimbun found that public support for Ishiba’s Cabinet was at 33 percent, below 39 percent who disapproved.
Those results are worse than Kishida faced in 2021 ahead of his first general election as prime minister: 42 percent approval against 31 percent disapproval, the Asahi said.
The daily said its polls indicated that the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito ran the risk of losing a majority in the upcoming election.
Jiji Press said its polls and reporting showed the coalition was likely to retain its majority, although the LDP might not pass the threshold on its own — a possibility reflected in several previous polls by other outlets.
The conservative LDP and Komeito, a moderate party backed by a Buddhist-linked group, have been in power since 2012 when late former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe won a landslide victory.
If the LDP loses its majority it would be the first time since 2009, when the party was beaten in an election by the more left-wing opposition.
“Regardless of whether or not we lose our majority, we should hold positive talks with parties that are trying to develop the country with the same policies,” LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama said in a debate program aired by public broadcaster NHK on Sunday.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS