Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso (left) has suffered a plunge in voter support after a weekend defeat in a closely-watched mayoral race and ahead of general elections. --PHOTO: REUTERS
TOKYO - JAPAN'S embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso has suffered a plunge in voter support, two polls showed on Monday, after a weekend defeat in a closely-watched mayoral race and ahead of general elections.
Mr Aso, reeling from a cabinet aide's resignation Friday and now his party's third mayoral election loss since April, has to call a national vote by September, with polls suggesting his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is heading for defeat.
ANOTHER opinion poll conducted by the Mainichi daily showed support for Mr Aso had fallen to 19 per cent from 24 per cent in mid-May, while 32 per cent backed DPJ's Hatoyama as the next premier against 15 per cent who want Mr Aso to stay.
In Chiba, the DPJ-supported 31-year-old Toshihito Kumagai scored a landslide win against the LDP-backed former deputy mayor of Chiba, Mr Kojiro Hayashi, 63, by 170,629 votes to 117,560.
A survey by Kyodo News over the weekend showed support for the Aso cabinet among the electorate had dropped to 17.5 per cent, down 8.7 points from last month. The disapproval rate for his cabinet rose to 70.6 per cent, up 10.4 points.
Asked which party they would vote for, 47.8 per cent named the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) while only 18.7 per cent said Mr Aso's LDP.
On Sunday, the candidate backed by the DPJ won the mayoral poll in Chiba City, just east of Tokyo, dealing a fresh blow to Mr Aso.
The vote came just two days after Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama, a long-time Aso ally, stepped down over a row related to the privatisation of Japan's huge postal service.
The win in Chiba for the DPJ-backed candidate 'deepened a sense of crisis' in the ruling coalition ahead of the election, Jiji Press news agency said.
Mr Yukio Hatoyama, the DPJ leader and brother of the just-resigned internal affairs minister, stepped up pressure on Mr Aso to call elections.
'Naturally, the outcome reflects the people's hope for a change of government,' Mr Hatoyama told reporters on Monday. 'We should dissolve parliament and hold national elections as soon as possible.'
Pundits have said the election will be the toughest fight yet for the LDP, which has ruled Japan almost without break for more than half a century. -- AFP
