Cabinet's Approval Rating Continues To Sink, Police Searches LDP MP's Office

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida continues to struggle to engineer a recovery in public support for his government, with the wedge between its approval and disapproval ratings widening further in the latest Jiji Press opinion poll.

• The survey showed that support for the Kishida Cabinet fell to a new record low of 21.3%. The disapproval rate climbed to 53.3%, marking a new high for the incumbent administration.
• The trends are broadly in line with the results of a recent Kyodo News survey, which showed that the Kishida Cabinet's approval rating plunged to a new low of 28.3%, while the disapproval rating rose to a record high of 56.7%.
• The government's support ratings are the worst since 2009, when voters handed a landslide victory to the Democratic Party of Japan, setting the stage for the first handover of power to an opposition party in the country's post-war history.
• The underwhelming results of the latest round of opinion polls suggest that voters have not been impressed by Kishida's fiscal stimulus package, with more than half fof respondents in both polls voicing their opposition to the proposed one-off tax cut.
• Furthermore, there is a perception that Kishida is to blame for a raft of scandals, which resulted in three high-level resignations (Deputy Ministers of Education, Justice and Finance) since the latest Cabinet reshuffle..
• On that note, local press reported that prosecutors searched the office of recently resigned Deputy Justice Minister Mito Kakizawa amid accusations that he paid local assembly members to support his candidate in a Tokyo ward mayoral election.