The approval rating for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's Cabinet was 39%, according to a nationwide poll conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun on Feb. 5-7, unchanged from the previous poll in mid-January.
The disapproval rating improved slightly, with 44% of respondents saying they did not support the Cabinet, compared to 49% from the previous poll, conducted Jan. 15-17.
Regarding remarks such as "A meeting of an executive board with many women takes so much time" made by Yoshiro Mori, the former prime minister who is the president of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, a combined 91% of respondents said the remarks were problematic: 63% said they were very problematic, and 28% said they were problematic to some extent.
By gender, 67% of female respondents said the remarks were very problematic, while 59% of male respondents gave the same response.
As for the issue in which Diet members of the ruling coalition stayed out late at night at hostess clubs in the Ginza district of Tokyo during the state of emergency, a combined 95% of respondents said it was problematic: 79% said it was very problematic, and 16% said it was problematic to some extent.
Regarding the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, 34% approved, up from 26% in the previous poll, while 57% disapproved, down from 66% in the January poll.
Asked about the government's decision to extend the state of emergency in 10 prefectures through March 7, 80% of respondents said they approved.
The approval rating for the Suga Cabinet was 69% in November, but had fallen in three successive polls as coronavirus infections continued to spread. The downward trend halted in the latest poll, likely because the number of new infections has started to decrease.
Support for political parties mostly stayed the same, as 37% of respondents said they supported the Liberal Democratic Party, unchanged from the last poll; 5% supported the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, also unchanged; 4% supported Komeito, slightly up from 3%. Respondents who said they don't support any party accounted for 42%, down from 46% in the previous poll.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
