(01/09/09) -

Japanese Cabinet Increasingly Unpopular

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Popular support for the administration of Japanese prime minister Taro Aso has continued to plummet, according to a poll by Nikkei. 21 per cent of respondents approve of Aso’s appointed cabinet, down 10 points since November.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Popular support for the administration of Japanese prime minister Taro Aso has continued to plummet, according to a poll by Nikkei. 21 per cent of respondents approve of Aso’s appointed cabinet, down 10 points since November.

Conversely, 73 per cent of respondents disapprove of the current government, up 30 points in two months.

Aside from a brief period in the 1990s, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has administered Japan’s government for more than five decades. An election to renew half of the House of Councillors seats took place in July 2007. Final results gave the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) 60 of the 121 seats at stake, with the governing LDP winning 37 mandates. The opposition—with 137 seats—now holds a majority in the upper house of Japan’s Diet for the first time since the LDP was founded in 1955.

Since the retirement of Junichiro Koizumi, Japan has had three different LDP leaders and prime ministers. Shinzo Abe served from September 2006 to September 2007, and was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda. In September 2008, Fukuda announced he would step down as he felt "swamped" by the country’s issues. Foreign minister Aso won an internal leadership ballot and was sworn in as Japan’s new prime minister.

On Jan. 5, Aso admitted that his family’s mining company used prisoners of war as slaves during World War II, declaring, "Research by the Welfare Ministry last year has newly revealed that Aso Mining made Allied POWs work."

Polling Data

Do you approve or disapprove of Taro Aso’s cabinet?

Source: Nikkei
Methodology: Interviews with 925 Japanese adults, conducted on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25, 2008. No margin of error was provided.