76% say Kan lacks leadership over nuclear crisis, quake

TOKYO, April 30 Kyodo -
A total of 76.0 percent think Prime Minister Naoto Kan is not exercising sufficient leadership in handling the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and responding to the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, up from 63.7 percent in the previous survey in late March, Kyodo News survey results showed Saturday.
The telephone survey conducted Friday and Saturday also showed that 23.6 percent of the respondents think Kan should resign immediately, up from 13.8 percent in the previous survey.
A total of 70.6 percent said they do not value the government's handling of the nuclear crisis, up 12.4 percentage points, and 52.3 percent said they do not value the way the central government has dealt with disaster-hit areas, up 13.1 points.
The support rating for Kan's Cabinet dropped 1.5 points to 26.8 percent, and the disapproval rating rose 3.1 points to 58.7 percent.
Asked about their evaluation of Kan as the country's leader, 45.7 percent replied he is not exercising much leadership, and 30.3 percent said he does not exercise leadership at all. Only 1.3 percent said he does so sufficiently, and 21.0 percent said he wields leadership to some extent.
As for the handling of the nuclear crisis, 43.6 percent said they do not value the government's response to the nuclear crisis much, and 27.0 percent said they do not approve of it at all. Meanwhile, 25.9 percent said they approve of it to some extent and 1.8 percent said they do so very much.
On the government's response to the quake and tsunami, 12.4 percent said they do not value its relief measures for people affected by the disasters and support for disaster-hit areas at all, and 39.9 percent said they do not value them much. The survey showed 41.1 percent said they approve of such efforts to some extent and 5.0 percent said they do so very much.
The survey also showed that 70.2 percent said they would approve a tax hike to finance rehabilitation efforts after the devastating quake and tsunami, up from 67.5 percent in a similar questionnaire in March.
Japan's northeastern region, hard hit by the disaster, was the region least willing to see a consumption tax hike to cover reconstruction expenses, with only 6.4 percent in the region responding that they support higher consumption tax.
On monthly child allowances for each child of junior high school age or younger, a key part of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan's election pledges, a total of 66.3 percent supported scrapping the policy while 28.2 percent said they want the DPJ policy to be maintained.
The support rate for the DPJ fell to 17.4 percent from 18.9 percent in the previous survey, while that for the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party rose to 25.4 percent from 20.6 percent.
As for the idea of the two major parties forming a grand coalition, 48.6 percent opposed the idea, surpassing 37.8 percent who supported it.
Among other parties, Your Party got 7.4 percent, the New Komeito party 4.3 percent and the Japanese Communist Party 2.0 percent, while 38.7 percent said they support no political party.