23 February 2010 / REUTERS, TOKYO
Support for Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government has slipped further, a newspaper poll showed on Monday, adding to the leader’s woes ahead of a midyear election that his party needs to win to avoid policy deadlock.
Hatoyama’s Democratic Party took power after an election for the more powerful lower house last year, but it needs to win a majority in the upper house to drop an awkward coalition with two smaller parties to smooth policy-making. Support for the government has fallen to 37 percent from 41 percent earlier this month, a poll of more than 2,000 voters by the Asahi Shimbun daily showed. Disapproval was at 46 percent. The poll follows another blow for Hatoyama on Sunday, when a candidate backed by his party lost an election for governor in southern Japan, in a sign of voter frustration over a scandal ensnaring the party’s No.2 executive, Ichiro Ozawa. The weekend gubernatorial vote was seen as the first test for the Democrats after three of Ozawa’s current and former aides were charged for misreporting political funds. While a majority of voters want Ozawa to step down from the party’s secretary-general post, his departure could delay policy-making because he is seen by many as the real power behind the government and can make tough decisions when others can’t.
