Japanese cabinet's approval rating down to 24 per cent

Feb 16, 2012, 11:12 GMT

Tokyo - The approval rating for Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's cabinet fell to 24.9 per cent, down 3.5 percentage points from a month earlier, a poll released by Jiji Press found Thursday.

The disapproval rating rose by 4.4 percentage points to 52.7 per cent, topping 50 per cent for the first time since Noda took office in September, the survey found.

Among respondents who supported Noda's cabinet, 10.4 per cent said there is no alternative leader, 6.3 per cent said they trust him and 6.2 per cent said they believe there would be no change whoever becomes prime minister, the survey said.

Of those who disapproved of the cabinet, 34.9 per cent said they have low expectations, 22.8 per cent said the cabinet's policies are bad and 21.9 per cent said the premier lacks leadership, Jiji said.

The survey also showed that 23.5 per cent said they would vote for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the next House of Representatives election. That rate for the largest opposition party topped the 13.3 per cent for Noda's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

Noda - a fiscal hawk who served as finance minister under his immediate predecessor, Naota Kan - is the third prime minister under the DPJ.

The party won a landslide victory in the 2009 general election, ending more than a half-century of almost uninterrupted rule by the LDP.