Support for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet stalled in some media polls, with a scandal involving his son adding to the problems starting to overshadow the kudos he gained for hosting the G7 leader’s summit.
Kishida was last week forced to rebuke his eldest son, Shotaro Kishida, who acts as his secretary, after photographs emerged in a magazine showing him posing with relatives at a party at the prime minister’s official residence. Some of the shots showed Shotaro Kishida standing on the stairs where Cabinet members take their official photos.
A poll carried out by the Nikkei from Friday to Sunday showed Fumio Kishida’s support falling 5 percentage points to 47 percent, the same level found in a Kyodo survey.
Photo: AFP
In a poll by the Asahi newspaper, it rose to 46 percent. Three-quarters of respondents to the poll said the party was a problem.
Speculation about an early election had been reignited a week earlier after Fumio Kishida’s hosting of the G7 summit, with the unexpected presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meeting widespread approval.
The scandal over Fumio Kishida’s son comes as attention refocuses from the international stage to domestic problems.
About 70 percent of respondents to the Kyodo poll said they were uneasy about a series of mess-ups related to the introduction of a unified ID card for tax, social security and health insurance.
The Nikkei poll found that 69 percent of respondents opposed a hike in social security premiums, the latest idea being floated to pay for Fumio Kishida’s plans to double spending on children.
Fumio Kishida has said that the drastic increase in outlays on young families is a last chance to overcome the aging country’s slumping birthrate, which he says threatens to bring about societal collapse.
The deeply indebted country faces a battle over where to find the money, with voters already hurting from inflation reluctant to pay more in taxes.
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