KYODO NEWS




 

The approval rating for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet plunged to 40.8 percent, a Kyodo News poll showed Sunday, with many in the public wary of the government's push to expand the use of the national identification card, plagued with privacy concerns.

The support rating was down from 47.0 percent in the previous poll in late May, while the disapproval rating increased 5.7 percentage points to 41.6 percent, according to the two-day nationwide telephone survey conducted from Saturday.

The sluggish showing came after Kishida on Thursday ruled out dissolving the House of Representatives to call a snap election during the ongoing Diet session that will end in days, following lingering speculation that he may do so while riding on higher ratings after hosting the Group of Seven summit last month.

But after the summit, Kishida has faced a public backlash over photos showing his eldest son's merrymaking at a private party at the prime minister's official residence, which led to the son being sacked as his father's executive secretary.

Public skepticism over the so-called My Number ID card system has also deepened amid revelations of a series of personal information leaks and registration errors.

The poll showed that a total of 71.6 percent were either "worried" or "worried to some extent" about the expanding use of My Number cards, while 72.1 percent called for the postponement or cancellation of the government's plan to scrap health insurance cards and incorporate them into the ID cards in the fall of next year.

Under the My Number ID card system, launched in 2016, a 12-digit number is issued to each citizen and foreign resident of Japan to link a range of personal data, including tax and social security information.

Child care policy, which Kishida has called a priority, also does not appear to have helped boost the Cabinet's rating, with 66.3 percent of surveyed respondents saying they have either "no expectations" or "do not expect much" from the government's plan to increase spending on child care to slow Japan's rapidly declining birthrate.

The government has pledged "unparalleled" measures, such as removing an income limit for child-rearing allowances and raising payments for paternity leave. It also plans to boost annual spending on child care by around 3.5 trillion yen ($25 billion), a level on par with nations like front-runner Sweden, through fiscal 2027.

But the debt-saddled nation has yet to decide how it will be funded.
While Kishida has said he will devise a concrete plan to pay for the program at the end of this year, 72.7 percent said they are not convinced with his explanation.

On recently enacted legislation to promote the understanding of sexual minorities, including the LGBT community, 52.9 percent said it will help address discrimination and prejudice, but 41.6 percent said they thought otherwise.

Japan has faced pressure to become more supportive of the LGBT community, with the Asian country seen as lagging behind the other G-7 advanced nations on the issue. But political wrangling led to a watered-down law that critics fear could be ineffective in combating the discrimination it is designed to address.

As for the support rates by political parties, 35.5 percent said they back the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, followed by 13.6 percent and 8.1 percent who said they favor the opposition Japan Innovation Party and the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, respectively.

More than 26 percent said they did not support any political party.
The poll called 525 randomly selected households with eligible voters on landline phones and 2,469 mobile phone numbers. It yielded responses from 422 people from households and 622 mobile phone users.