Japan’s Kishida faces plummeting public support – can opposition take advantage?
- Several opinion polls show public anger against the ruling LDP is growing over issues ranging from corruption to Japan’s population decline
- If opposition parties can propose feasible solutions to tackle issues linked to the falling population, they could win over voters, an analyst says
A public opinion poll by the Yomuiri newspaper published on Tuesday put Kishida’s approval rating at 26 per cent, the seventh consecutive month the figure was below the 30 per cent threshold.
“The LDP is trying to come up with policies but it’s largely talk and nothing is really changing,” Hiromi Murakami, a professor of political science at the Tokyo campus of Temple University, told This Week in Asia. “So this is a chance for the opposition.”
While there is considerable public cynicism against the opposition after the brief and unspectacular Democratic Party of Japan government that ruled between September 2009 and December 2012, the public is tired of the present government and eager for change, analysts say.
“People want many and different things but as a nation we have realised that a solution to the demographic crisis is the biggest issue that Japan faces,” said Hiromi Murakami, a professor of political science at the Tokyo campus of Temple University.