Support rate for Ishiba’s Cabinet rises 7.9 points to 40%: poll

The approval rating for the Cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba rose 7.9 percentage points to 40.0 percent, a Kyodo News survey showed Sunday, leaving it still well below its initial support of over 50 percent from just over a month ago.

The telephone poll, conducted for two days from Saturday, found 69.9 percent of respondents support a review of the income threshold for paying tax, while 32.4% said Japan-U.S. relations will deteriorate after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The approval rating for Ishiba’s Cabinet stood at 50.7 percent the day after his inauguration on Oct. 1. But his ruling Liberal Democratic Party then suffered a crushing defeat in the Oct. 27 general election.

He was reelected as prime minister in a special parliament session Monday last week, even though his LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito party lost their majority control of the lower house in the election.

The prime minister, who now leads a minority government plans to cooperate on a policy-by-policy basis with opposition parties such as the Democratic Party for the People, which campaigned on raising the income tax threshold to boost disposable income for the election.

Among those polled, 67.9 percent said they approved of cooperation between the ruling coalition and opposition parties to pass bills smoothly, while 26.4 percent said the ruling bloc should allow opposition parties to join the coalition to form a majority.

On the election of Trump, around 56.1 percent said Japan-U.S. relations will be unchanged. Some 8.1 percent said it will improve ties.

Trump is expected to pursue protectionist policies and his proposed tariffs could affect Japanese exporters’ trade with the world’s largest economy.

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