Polls show Kishida Cabinet's approval rating falls into "waters of resignation"
A recent poll released in Japan showed that the public support rate for the cabinet led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has fallen to 19.1%, which is below 20% and is in the "waterline" of stepping down. Another poll showed that more than 80% of Japanese people do not want Fumio Kishida to be re-elected as prime minister.
The Asahi Shimbun conducted a telephone survey on the support for the Kishida Cabinet and the Liberal Democratic Party from the 15th to the 16th. The results released on the 17th showed that only 19.1% of respondents supported the Kishida Cabinet, a decrease of 1.6 percentage points from May, the lowest support rate for any cabinet since the Liberal Democratic Party returned to power in December 2012. The support rate for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party was also dismal, falling to 19%.
In the Japanese political arena, if the cabinet support rate falls below 30%, public opinion considers it to be in "dangerous waters". If it falls further below 20%, it will be regarded as falling into "step-down waters".
The poll results released by Fuji News on the 17th showed that 81.5% of the respondents did not want Fumio Kishida to be re-elected as prime minister. When asked how long they hoped Kishida would serve as prime minister of Japan, 55.9% of the respondents said they hoped he would step down after completing his term as president of the Liberal Democratic Party in September this year, and another 25.6% of the respondents hoped he would "step down immediately."
Since the end of last year, the Liberal Democratic Party has been exposed to scandals such as "black money" and "sexy parties", and its support rate has continued to decline. In the Japanese House of Representatives by-election held on April 28, the Liberal Democratic Party lost in all three constituencies, and all the seats originally belonging to the party were won by the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party.
According to Japanese media reports, after the latest poll results came out, Japanese Communist Party Secretary-General Akira Koike said that the poll results clearly reflected the Japanese people's call for the LDP to step down and Kishida to step down. Some members of the LDP also called for Kishida to step down and "take responsibility for the current situation."