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Japan needs a jujitsu premier to face funding scandal

Fumio Kishida should look to a maverick predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, for guidance on dealing with plunging polling numbers and a funding furore in his party.

Japan PM Fumio Kishida's support rates are at a level where they have typically destroyed other leaders in the past.

Japan PM Fumio Kishida’s support rates are at a level that has typically destroyed other leaders in the past.

PHOTO: REUTERS

Gearoid Reidy

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Mr Fumio Kishida is in trouble.

Japan’s Prime Minister is dealing with

the lowest approval ratings

since his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) returned to power in 2012 – support rates so low that they have typically destroyed other leaders. In one recent favourability survey of current and former leaders, Mr Kishida not only ranked below Mr Yasuo Fukuda, the most forgettable of the many LDP heads of the 2000s, but also Mr Yoshihiko Noda – the last head of the doomed opposition Democratic Party of Japan administration, whose signature policy achievement was pushing through a widely hated consumption tax hike.

Japan needs a jujitsu premier to face funding scandal

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