The approval rating for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet has edged up by 0.4 percentage point to 24.2 percent, a Kyodo News survey showed Monday, with a political funds scandal still shaking his Liberal Democratic Party.
The telephone poll conducted for three days from Saturday also showed 79.7 percent of respondents disapprove of the ruling bloc's proposals to amend the political funds control law, which the LDP and its junior coalition partner, Komeito party, agreed on last week.
After the political funds scandal was revealed late last year, the support rate for Kishida's Cabinet, launched in October 2021, dropped below what is widely recognized as the "danger level" of 30 percent and hit an all-time low in March at 20.1 percent.
Kishida's LDP has come under scrutiny after some of its factions, such as the largest one formerly led by the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, neglected to report portions of their incomes from fundraising parties and maintained slush funds for years.
As Kishida has pledged to revise the political funds control law by the end of the ongoing parliamentary session through June, the LDP and Komeito agreed Thursday to their proposals aimed at enhancing transparency in the usage of money available to lawmakers.
The ruling camp decided to lower the threshold for disclosing the names of party ticket buyers from the current 200,000 yen ($1,280) but has yet to determine the extent of the reduction, triggering a backlash from opposition lawmakers.
In the latest survey, 42.7 percent of respondents called for tougher penalties for failing to properly report revenue from political fundraising parties, and 24.7 percent advocated for the prohibition of such events.
The LDP and Komeito also affirmed that senior lawmakers should disclose how they utilize the so-called policy activity funds provided by their parties. Despite reaching expenditures of hundreds of millions of yen, these funds have not been subject to disclosure until now.
As for how issues related to policy activity funds should be resolved, the survey showed that 52.0 percent said their usage should be disclosed in detail, while 26.8 percent sought their abolishment, and 3.0 percent answered that tighter regulation is unnecessary.
Legal experts have criticized the political funds control law for loopholes enabling politicians to create slush funds.
On the economic front, Kishida's leadership has been called into question as his government has failed to implement effective measures to curb the yen's rapid decline to 34-year lows against the U.S. dollar, which has driven up import costs and hiked consumer prices at home.
The survey showed 90.5 percent believe wage growth surpassing inflation will not be realized by the end of this year. Japan's real wages, adjusted for inflation, slid for the 24th consecutive month in March as salary gains continued to fall short of sharp price rises.
As domestic demand has shown few signs of a drastic recovery, the support rate for the LDP stood at 24.7 percent in May, around its lowest level since December 2012 when the party scored a landslide victory in the general election to return to power.
By political party, support for the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan has increased to 12.7 percent from 10.9 percent in April, while that of the Japan Innovation Party has decreased to 7.4 percent from 8.1 percent.
No opposition party other than the CDPJ had a support rate above 10 percent despite the slush funds scandal undermining public trust in the LDP. Respondents with no particular party affiliation fell to 32.3 percent from 35.2 percent.
The survey called 537 randomly selected households with eligible voters and 2,234 mobile phone numbers. It yielded responses from 427 household members and 628 mobile phone users.
Some parts of Ishikawa Prefecture affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake on the New Year's Day were excluded from the survey.
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