 |
Japan PM Mori Popularity Slips Into Danger Zone
Doubts about his qualifications for Japan"s top post are eroding public support for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, pulling his popularity ratings below 20 percent and into ranges domestic media have dubbed a danger zone. Although power brokers in Mori"s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are still backing the embattled prime minister, political analysts say sliding support rates could force them to rethink. But the inability of mainstream factions in the long-ruling LDP -- the biggest partner in Japan"s ruling coalition -- to agree on a successor to Mori could help him keep his job. "To put it in extreme terms, it wouldn"t be odd if Mori resigned tomorrow," said Hitoshi Ichio, a strategist who follows politics for Commmerz Securities. "The reason he doesn"t fall is that there is no one to succeed him, so there is a chance he could last until next summer"s Upper House election." Opinion polls conducted since Mori suffered a big blow on Friday when his close confidant,Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa was forced to resign over a scandal, show support for Mori"s cabinet sliding below 20 percent -- a level domestic media said had in the past signaled a premier was on his way out. A weekend survey of 1,061 voters by the daily Mainichi Shimbun published on Tuesday showed the percentage of voters in favor of Mori"s cabinet had fallen five points to 15 percent. The percentage of those opposed rose four points to 58 percent. "His low flying plane is in danger of losing speed," said a headline in the newspaper. Mori"s rating was the third lowest of any prime minister since it began such polling in 1969, worse only than the late Noboru Takeshita in March, 1989 and former prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa in December, 1992, the Mainichi said. Takeshita later resigned over a scandal and Miyazawa lost his post after his long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) split, lost an election, and was replaced by a reformist coalition in 1993.
In This Section
|