March 27, 2008

Abstract: (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The appointed cabinet of Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda has lost a great deal of public support, according to a poll by Yomiuri. 33.9 per cent of respondents approve of Fukuda’s administration, down 25.2 points since October.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The appointed cabinet of Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda has lost a great deal of public support, according to a poll by Yomiuri. 33.9 per cent of respondents approve of Fukuda’s administration, down 25.2 points since October.

In September 2007, Fukuda was elected as the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and officially sworn in as Japan’s prime minister, substituting Shinzo Abe. Fukuda served as chief cabinet secretary during the premierships of Yoshiro Mori and Junichiro Koizumi. He is also the son of former Japanese head of government Takeo Fukuda.

Fukuda retained many of Abe’s collaborators in the new Japanese cabinet. Nobutaka Machimura—who served as foreign minister under Abe—was appointed as chief cabinet secretary, Masahiko Komura is now in charge of foreign affairs, and Shigeru Ishiba has taken over as defence minister.

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.

Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution literally states, "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." This article was written after Japan’s defeat in World War II, during the American occupation.

On Mar. 25, Fukuda said he will advocate for changing the clause that limits troop deployments abroad, declaring, "I wish to draw up a bill and have it debated during the current session of Parliament. As the [opposition] Democratic Party has proposed debating the bill for some time, I wish to do it by all means."

Polling Data

Do you approve or disapprove of Yasuo Fukuda’s cabinet?

	Mar. 2008	Oct. 2007
Approve	33.9%	59.1%
Disapprove	59.1%	26.7%

Source: Yomiuri
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,786 Japanese voters, conducted on Mar. 15 and Mar. 16, 2008. Margin of error was provided.