New Record of Unpopularity

Suffering from consecutive scandals of political allies and rebel of former senior staff in a Ministry on selecting new veterinary school, Shinzo Abe administration faces difficulty in maintaining its popularity. In a weekend poll operated by Asahi Shimbun, the supporting rate of Abe Cabinet declined as low as 33%, marking new record of the lowest rate since Abe took the seat for the second time in December 2012. The main reason of the decline was distrust on Prime Minister.

The supporting rate had already been low in a poll in the previous weekend, which marked 38%. Further down was caused by broader criticism in male. While male supporters had been surpassing non-supporters in the last poll, 45% of male answered that they did not support Abe administration this time, exceeding 39% of the supporters. Supporting rate of female marked 27%, getting into a warning zone of lower than 30%.

Serious phenomenon is seen in the supporters for the leading parties. While 12% of the supporters for Liberal Democratic Party did not support Abe administration, that rate of the supporters for Komeito jumped up to 40%. Komeito rejected cooperation with LDP in the election of Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, because of unclear process of policies led by LDP members. Komeito’s negative attitude against LDP in Tokyo is affecting national politics. Independent voters, which occupied one half of all, showed clear frustration with Abe administration with 60% of non-supporting.

The poll asked how the people could trust Abe with regard of his current speeches or behavior. While 36% answered that they could trust him surely or to some extent, 61% responded to the question with distrust in a certain degree or at all. 74% did not positively evaluate Abe’s handling of Kake Gakuen scandal, in which he had been reluctant to explain his relationship with the Chairman of the school. 55% required an extraordinary session of the Diet for the scandal, which the opposite party had requested in accordance with a provision of Constitution of Japan.

More serious for Abe administration, 60% thought that Abe had to fire Minister of Defense, Tomomi Inada, who made illegal speech in Tokyo election, requesting votes for LDP from the standpoint of the leader of Self-defense Force. As long as seeing the result of negative opinion on the schedule of constitutional amendment, in which 49% did not positively evaluate the schedule defeating 35% of supporters, unpopularity of Abe administration affects his biggest political agenda.

It is likely that Abe will reshuffle his Cabinet in early August. But it is not expectable that the supporting rate will show a drastic revitalization, because there is no fresh face for new Ministers or board members of LDP. The reshuffling sometimes caused further decline of a Cabinet in the history of LDP administration. Trust can be achieved with clear answers on a number of questions the people embrace.