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Support for Aso plummets below 20%
January 12, 2009, Monday
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Support for Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso's Cabinet is hovering below 20 percent, a nationwide poll showed yesterday, as the premier struggles to get measures to help the economy past a divided parliament before calling elections his party looks set to lose.
Kyodo News said the approval rating for the Cabinet had fallen to 19.2 percent in a telephone survey conducted at the weekend, down 6.3 points from December, while the disapproval rating came in at 70.2 percent, up 8.9 points from last month.
Saddled with a deepening recession and plagued by an emboldened opposition that already controls the upper house of parliament, Aso appears to be leading the long-ruling Liberal Democrat Party to defeat in lower house elections due this year.
Kyodo reported that 46.4 percent of respondents said they would prefer Ichiro Ozawa, head of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, as prime minister, more than double the 22.1 percent who backed Aso for the job. As well, 51.4 percent said they would prefer a government led by the DPJ, compared with only 30.5 percent who wanted Aso's LDP.
Aso, 68, has effectively ruled out calling an election until parliament passes a supplementary budget for the year to the end of March and the full budget for fiscal 2009/10.
The government hopes to get lower house approval as early as tomorrow for the extra budget, which includes funding for 2 trillion yen (US$22 billion) in payouts to individuals that the opposition says is pork-barrel spending aimed at the election.
Kyodo reported that 70.5 percent of respondents opposed the payout plan, up 12.4 points. Many respondents said the money should instead be used for pensions and medical services.
Ozawa blasted the proposed payouts again yesterday as useless for stimulating the economy, a stance economists as well as many in the LDP share, but said his party would take a positive approach to the extra budget if Aso agreed to drop the payout plan.
Kyodo News said the approval rating for the Cabinet had fallen to 19.2 percent in a telephone survey conducted at the weekend, down 6.3 points from December, while the disapproval rating came in at 70.2 percent, up 8.9 points from last month.
Saddled with a deepening recession and plagued by an emboldened opposition that already controls the upper house of parliament, Aso appears to be leading the long-ruling Liberal Democrat Party to defeat in lower house elections due this year.
Kyodo reported that 46.4 percent of respondents said they would prefer Ichiro Ozawa, head of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, as prime minister, more than double the 22.1 percent who backed Aso for the job. As well, 51.4 percent said they would prefer a government led by the DPJ, compared with only 30.5 percent who wanted Aso's LDP.
Aso, 68, has effectively ruled out calling an election until parliament passes a supplementary budget for the year to the end of March and the full budget for fiscal 2009/10.
The government hopes to get lower house approval as early as tomorrow for the extra budget, which includes funding for 2 trillion yen (US$22 billion) in payouts to individuals that the opposition says is pork-barrel spending aimed at the election.
Kyodo reported that 70.5 percent of respondents opposed the payout plan, up 12.4 points. Many respondents said the money should instead be used for pensions and medical services.
Ozawa blasted the proposed payouts again yesterday as useless for stimulating the economy, a stance economists as well as many in the LDP share, but said his party would take a positive approach to the extra budget if Aso agreed to drop the payout plan.
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