The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s popularity has plummeted in the past few weeks, according to polls published on Tuesday by leading Japanese media organisations.
The polls by the Yomiuri, Asahi and Mainichi newspapers, as well as the public broadcaster, NHK, taken over the weekend show a widespread loss of public faith in the government’s commitment to reform and mounting concerns over Mr Abe’s lack of leadership and the direction of his government’s policies.
A poll by Japan’s most widely read newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun, showed Mr Abe’s rating dropped sharply by 9.2 points to 55.9 per cent.
The more left-leaning Asahi Shimbun poll showed a larger drop to 47 per cent from 63 per cent when the Abe government was formed in late September, while the Mainichi poll had Mr Abe's support rating down at 46 per cent down 7 percentage points from a month ago and 21 points from when he took office.
NHK found Mr Abe’s support fall to 48 per cent from 59 per cent two months ago.
Survey respondents cited Mr Abe’s lack of leadership and failure to communicate his policy objectives more effectively as key reasons for their disenchantment with the government.
Mr Abe has sought to shore up his reformist credentials by calling this week for the largest ever cut to Japanese government bond issuance and pledging to use an expected tax windfall for deficit reduction rather than public works spending.
Koji Omi, finance minister, said on Tuesday the government would trim new government bond issuance for fiscal 2006 by about Y2,500bn.
The cut will reduce new government bond issuance from an initially planned Y29,970bn to about Y27,000bn, the lowest level since fiscal 1999.
Mr Abe’s insistence on debt reduction follows widespread disappointment over his handling of an attempt to redirect road tax revenues into the general account.
The change to the use of road tax revenues, which hitherto have been reserved for the building of new roads, was considered a test of the government’s commitment to reform.
However, in the event, the agreement between the government and the LDP was a compromise that will shift road tax revenues to the general account only after necessary roads are built, and did not include gasoline taxes, which make up 80 per cent of all road-related tax revenues.
The road tax debacle follows a more widely criticised move by the LDP to re-admit 11 parliamentarians who had been banished from the party due to their opposition to postal privatisation.
The decision has widely been interpreted as a setback for the reforms championed by Mr Abe’s predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi.
The Yomiuri’s poll showed increased concerns over Mr Abe’s economic policies, with disappointment rising 9 points to 33 per cent.
However, as much as 65 per cent of the Yomiuri’s respondents still have hope in Mr Abe.
Meanwhile, concerns that the Abe cabinet’s fiscal tightening would threaten Japan’s still nascent recovery were allayed on Tuesday when the ruling party moved closer to postponing an increase in capital gains and dividend taxes by one year.
The government had been seeking to abolish a tax break on capital gains tax by the end of next year and on dividends by the end of March 2008.
