Approval rating of Aso Cabinet drops to 11%-15% level

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Approval rating of Aso Cabinet drops to 11%-15% level

The latest media polls show that the approval rating of Prime Minister Aso Taro's cabinet fell to below 15 percent.

The rating was 11 percent in the Mainichi poll and 13 percent in the Asahi and Kyodo News polls. In the Nikkei-TV Tokyo poll, the approval rate was 15 percent but the disapproval rate was a record 80 percent.

Commenting on these findings, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi on February 23 said at a news conference that such record low approval ratings of the Aso Cabinet testify to the fact that it is terminally ill.

Ichida said that the reason for the declines in the approval rating is the Aso Cabinet's "inability to come up with any measures to effectively deal with the present hardships in people's livelihoods and the country's economy."

"Prime Minister Aso Taro says anything that just comes to mind. He always tries to explain things away. He has no coherent philosophy. He is totally irresponsible," Ichida said.

Prime Minister Aso kept siding with ex-Finance Minister Nakagawa Shoichi who resigned over appearing to be drunk at a news conference during the G7 meeting in Rome. Ichida said, "People know that the present cabinet is not worth relying on."

Even within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, some reportedly said, "We feel relieved because none of the surveys shows figures below a 10-percent approval rating."

Commenting on this, Ichida said, "They can no longer have any confidence in what they are doing. It is tantamount to admitting themselves how divorced they are from the people's will."

- Akahata, February 24, 2009