Takaichi Cabinet Approval Rating Hits Record Low Again... Opposition Merger Efforts Stagnant

The approval rating for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Cabinet, which has recently been on a downward trend, has hit a record low in a Kyodo News public opinion survey.

Kyodo News announced that a telephone poll conducted from the 22nd to the 23rd showed the Cabinet's approval rating at 50.2%, down 3.5 percentage points from last month's survey, marking the lowest since the administration's launch.

Regarding Prime Minister Takaichi's push for a tax cut to lower the consumption tax on food from the current 8% to 1% for two years starting next April, a combined 71.7% of respondents answered that they feel fiscal anxiety, choosing either "feel" or "feel to some extent."

While anxiety over the tax cut policy was high, public opinion was evenly split over historical issues.

Prime Minister Takaichi did not mention "remorse" for the damage inflicted on neighboring countries—a phrasing used by some former prime ministers—during the memorial service for the war dead on Liberation Day (the anniversary of Japan's WWII defeat). In response, 47.8% evaluated this positively, while 42.6% evaluated it negatively.

Although the Takaichi Cabinet's approval rating dropped to an all-time low, voter expectations for the merger currently being pursued by the opposition parties were also found to be low.

In the Kyodo News survey, 51.0% of respondents—half of the total—replied regarding discussions on merging the Centrist Reform Alliance, the Constitutional Democratic Party, and Komeito that "merger discussions should be completely withdrawn and they should return to their original structures."

Ahead of the House of Representatives general election held last February, the Constitutional Democratic Party, then the main opposition party, and Komeito, which broke away from the former ruling coalition, formed the Centrist Reform Alliance through a merger before the election, which led to a landslide victory for the Liberal Democratic Party.

However, because the merger between the two opposition parties applied only to the House of Representatives, they have been operating as three separate entities—the Centrist Reform Alliance, the Constitutional Democratic Party, and Komeito—in the House of Councillors while continuing merger discussions.

While they maintain a policy of reaching a conclusion by the end of this month, weight is being lent to projections that a three-party merger will be difficult to realize due to local organizational integration issues and differences in policy views.

There are even projections that, depending on the circumstances, they could revert to the individual party states they were in before the Centrist Reform Alliance merger.

In recent opinion polls by major Japanese media outlets, the approval ratings for the opposition parties have remained sluggish at around 5%.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is leading party approval ratings in the 20% range.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.