Slump in support for Japan's troubled PM

Source: Agencies  |   2008-12-8  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

SUPPORT for Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso slid more than 15 points to around 25 percent in a poll released yesterday that also showed voters unhappy with his decision to delay measures to prop up the sagging economy.

Aso is finding it increasingly difficult to keep his party in line as his support rate falls and the economy slides deeper into recession, intensifying criticism from politicians who fear defeat in a general election that must be held by September 2009.

Only 25.5 percent of respondents to a weekend poll by the Kyodo news agency backed Aso, who took office in September hoping to lead the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner to victory in an election to be held by September 2009.

That was in line with other polls showing policy flip-flops and verbal gaffes have eroded Aso's ratings,

More than half of voters in the Kyodo survey - 55.7 percent - disagreed with Aso's decision to postpone until January the submission of an extra budget to fund a promised stimulus package with 5 trillion yen (US$54 billion) in fresh spending, Kyodo said.

In a sign of disarray in the party that has ruled Japan for most of the past half century, former financial services minister Yoshimi Watanabe said that he might leave the LDP if pressure from those angry at his criticism of Aso mounted.

"If there is big chorus telling me to leave, then I may do so," Watanabe told Fuji TV, repeating his call for a snap election and the formation of a "crisis management cabinet" to implement urgent economic policies.

Aso's junior coalition partner, New Komeito party leader Akihiro Ota, urged the prime minister to take bold economic measures to help the sagging economy. He told Asahi TV his party favoured an early election, perhaps in January or April.