Ishiba's Cabinet Approval Rating Languishes At 41%

The approval rating for Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet stood at 41.4%, while the disapproval rating was 40.4%, a Kyodo News survey showed.

22.6% of respondents plan to vote for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Ishiba, in the proportional representation segment of the election. I Photo: Prime Minister's Office of Japan X

The gap between the two ratings has narrowed from last week's poll, ahead of the general election on Oct. 27, Kyodo News reported. In the Oct. 13 poll, the approval rating was 42%, while disapproval was at 36.7%.

The nationwide telephone survey, conducted on Saturday and Sunday, revealed that 22.6% of respondents plan to vote for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Ishiba, in the proportional representation segment of the election, Mainichi Japan also reported.

Meanwhile, 14.1% expressed support for the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), narrowing the gap between it and the LDP to 8.5 percentage points compared to the previous survey.

Additionally, 49.7% of respondents said they would prefer the ruling and opposition parties to be evenly split, while 20.5% expressed a desire for the LDP to lose power, an increase of 5 percentage points from the prior poll.