Kan Cabinet`s disapproval rate surpasses approval rate

TOKYO, July 13 Kyodo -
The disapproval rate for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan has risen to
52.2 percent, far surpassing the approval rate which has plunged to 36.3
percent, the latest nationwide telephone poll by Kyodo News showed Tuesday.
In the poll conducted Monday and Tuesday after Sunday's House of Councillors
election where Kan's Democratic Party of Japan suffered a heavy loss, 52.8
percent responded that Kan does not need to resign as prime minister. Only 15.2
percent urged Kan to leave the post.
The Kan Cabinet's approval rate logged a sharp fall from 61.5 percent in a poll
just after its June 8 inauguration, while the disapproval rate doubled from
25.2 percent.
The approval rate was even lower than 43.4 percent in the previous poll last
Wednesday and Thursday just before the upper house election. The disapproval
rate then stood at 43.2 percent.
The ruling DPJ and its coalition partner, the People's New Party, lost a
majority in the upper house through the election after Kan discussed a future
consumption tax hike in campaign speeches.
Asked about the survey results, Kan said he is ''very happy'' that more than 50
percent of respondents think there is no need for him to step down.
But the latest survey found that 52.5 percent supported a consumption tax hike
for fiscal consolidation and social security, while 44.7 percent opposed the
hike. Welcoming Kan's call for supra-partisan talks on the hike were 44.9
percent against 48.0 percent who did not endorse it.
The poll also showed that 29.4 percent welcomed the election results, in which
Kan's DPJ-led ruling coalition lost a majority in the upper house, while 19.8
percent did not. Refraining from deciding whether to welcome the results were
49.2 percent.
The poll was conducted on a randomly selected 1,465 voters nationwide, of whom
1,034 gave valid answers.
The support rate for the ruling DPJ fell from 43.8 percent in the June survey
to 31.7 percent, against 27.6 percent for the Liberal Democratic Party, the
largest opposition party which won more seats than the DPJ in Sunday's election
where half of the chamber's 242 seats were up for grabs. The LDP's rate rose
from 20.0 percent.
Of the respondents in the latest poll, 16.3 percent supported Your Party, which
was formed in August 2009 and won 10 seats in Sunday's election. The rate
soared from 7.4 percent.
In the upper house election, 35.2 percent of the respondents gave top priority
to economic conditions, followed by 18.1 percent for tax, 10.3 percent for
pension, 8.4 percent for politics and money, and 7.4 percent for foreign policy
and national security.
As the top priority policy that the Kan Cabinet should tackle, 48.3 percent
cited economic and employment improvement, followed by 37.6 percent for
administrative and fiscal reform including elimination of waste spending, and
22.9 percent for social security reform.
==Kyodo