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| Japan PM admits voter frustration as polls slide |
| 10-MAR-2010 Intellasia | AFP |
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| 10 Mar, 2010 - 7:07:00 AM |
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Japan's centre-left Premier Yukio Hatoyama Monday conceded voters are frustrated as he faced sliding approval ratings but denied plans for a cabinet reshuffle ahead of July upper house elections.
Hatoyama -- whose Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took power six months ago after a landslide election victory -- was speaking as new polls showed approval rating for his cabinet as low as 36 percent.
"The view is spreading among the people that they don't necessarily see what they had expected from the DPJ... and that nothing has changed from before," Hatoyama told reporters.
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| File photo of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who conceded voters are frustrated as he faced sliding approval ratings but denied plans for a cabinet reshuffle ahead of July upper house elections.
(AFP/Jili Press/File/Jiji Press) |
"We need to accept the people's criticism squarely and think about a way to break this impasse."
When the government took power in September, ending more than half a century of conservative dominance, approval ratings were above 70 percent.
The government has since been dogged by money scandals, while the premier has been criticised as indecisive, especially in his handling of a dispute over the relocation of a controversial US military base on Okinawa island.
But Hatoyama denied he would reshuffle his cabinet in a bid to boost public support before an upper-house election in July, in which his party will seek to win full control over both chambers of the Diet legislature.
A Yomiuri Shimbun survey showed 57 percent of respondents did not want the DPJ to win a clear majority in the upper house, where it now rules with the support of two smaller parties, against 33 percent who hoped it would.
The cabinet approval rate fell to 41 percent from 47 percent a month ago, the best-selling paper said after the weekend survey.
A Kyodo News survey showed Sunday that the cabinet's approval rate had dropped to 36 percent.
Another poll, released Monday by the private television network JNN, found cabinet support fell to 38 percent from 44 percent in February.
Support has waned after a series of revelations of accounting irregularities that have led to the indictment of former aides to Hatoyama and to the DPJ secretary general Ichiro Ozawa, seen by many as the power behind the throne.
The party lost a local election last month in the southern prefecture of Nagasaki, which had been a stronghold of the party in past polls.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100308/wl_asia_afp/japanpolitics_20100308081354
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