(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – People in Japan are decidedly rejecting the government, according to a poll by Asahi. 64 per cent of respondents disapprove of the administration led by prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, up three points since April.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – People in Japan are decidedly rejecting the government, according to a poll by Asahi. 64 per cent of respondents disapprove of the administration led by prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, up three points since April.
In August 2009, Japanese voters renewed the House of Representatives. Final results gave the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) a victory with 308 of the 480 lower house seats at stake. DPJ leader Hatoyama was sworn in as prime minister in September.
Aside from a brief period in the 1990s, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had administered Japan’s government for more than five decades.
The former LDP-led government was marred by corruptions scandals. The new government has been the subject of suspicions as well.
In December, Hatoyama was criticized after it was revealed that political donations registered under the names of several individuals actually came from his mother. The Japanese prime minister has acknowledged receiving a monthly contribution of about $164,000 U.S. from his mother, but vowed to pay back taxes and penalties amounting to about $6.5 million U.S.
In January, three current and former aides of Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ’s secretary general, were arrested and charged with falsifying information in party fundraising reports. The three men were identified as Mitsutomo Ikeda, current DPJ lawmaker Tomohiro Ishikawa, and Takanori Okubo.
In late April, a judicial panel decided that Ozawa should be criminally charged over the funding scandal.
Earlier this month, Japanese financial services minister Shizuka Kamei warned that the country will not escape a crisis in Europe sparked by Greece’s ballooning debt, saying, "Japan cannot avoid suffering a [negative] impact."
Polling Data
Do you approve or disapprove of Yukio Hatoyama’s cabinet?
|
|
May 2010
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Apr. 2010
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Approve
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21%
|
25%
|
|
Disapprove
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64%
|
61%
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Source: Asahi
Methodology: Interviews with 2,077 Japanese adults, conducted on May 15 and May 16, 2010. No margin of error was provided.
