TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba\u2019s poll ratings have rebounded a month after disastrous election results left his premiership hanging by a thread, a clutch of surveys showed Monday.<\/p>\n
Ishiba took the helm of the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last year and has since lost his majority in both houses of parliament, most recently in upper chamber elections in July.<\/p>\n
But the self-confessed defense policy \u201cgeek\u201d and maker of model ships has defied calls to resign from within the party, which has governed Japan almost non-stop since the 1950s.<\/p>\n
According to one poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily published Monday, the approval rating for Ishiba\u2019s cabinet was 39 percent, a record 17 points higher than after the July 20 vote.<\/p>\n
More respondents (50 percent) now think Ishiba should remain than resign (42 percent), the questionnaire showed, a reversal from July, when 54 percent said he should go and 35 percent stay.<\/p>\n
Another poll conducted by Kyodo News put support at 35.4 percent, up 12.5 points from last month after the upper house election, while the disapproval rating stood at 49.8 percent.<\/p>\n
A third survey by the Mainichi Shimbun put backing for the prime minister at 33 percent, a rise of four points, the first time it has been over 30 percent since February.<\/p>\n
The Yomiuri put the recovery down to the recent trade deal with the United States and efforts by Ishiba\u2019s government to curb the recent meteoric rise in rice prices.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump announced a \u201cmassive\u201d trade deal with Japan only two days after the upper house election, cutting threatened US tariffs to 15 percent from 25 percent, while lowering those on cars to the same level.<\/p>\n
Voter backing of Ishiba\u2019s handling of US trade negotiations rose to 42 percent from 29 percent in June.<\/p>\n
An overwhelming 86 percent said they approved of the government\u2019s decision to shift policy toward increasing rice production.<\/p>\n
Rice prices have skyrocketed due to supply problems linked to a very hot summer in 2023 and panic-buying after a \u201cmegaquake\u201d warning last year, among other factors.<\/p>\n
Ishiba has appointed a new farm minister \u2013 the popular Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, a potential challenger \u2013 and his government has released emergency stocks in an effort to bring down prices.<\/p>\n
According to media reports, the LDP plans to conduct a review of last month\u2019s election, to be followed by a decision on whether to hold a party leadership election.<\/p>\n
Ishiba, 68, said after a recent LDP plenary meeting, where some lawmakers reportedly urged him to step down, that he would \u201cconsider appropriately\u201d the results of this investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to deepen my thinking as various things are going on simultaneously,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven within the LDP, passion for holding a party leadership election… has been diminishing,\u201d said Mikitaka Masuyama, politics professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may face criticism that instead of doing their jobs and addressing everyday life struggles like inflation, the LDP is holding a party leadership election,\u201d Masuyama said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba\u2019s poll ratings have rebounded a month after disastrous election results left his premiership hanging by a thread, a clutch of surveys showed Monday. Ishiba took the helm of the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last year and has since lost his majority in both houses of parliament, most recently …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":85838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85821,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85793\/revisions\/85821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}