Support for the Cabinet of Sanae Takaichi in Japan has plunged to its lowest since it launched in Oct. last year. As the administration unilaterally rammed through major bills such as the law on imperial succession (Imperial House Law) and the auxiliary capital law, sparking a backlash over poor communication, and prices kept rising, its base has peeled away faster.
On the 27th, based on a roundup of major outlets including the Yomiuri Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) and Kyodo News, support for the Takaichi Cabinet is dropping sharply across the board. In the most recent Yomiuri Shimbun poll held on the 24th–26th, the Cabinet's approval rating plunged 12 percentage points from the previous survey to 57%, falling into the 50% range for the first time since launch. In a Nikkei–TV Tokyo joint poll tallied over the same period (24th–26th), approval also fell 10 percentage points from the previous survey to 58%. Among unaffiliated voters, disapproval (51%) overtook support.
In a Mainichi Shimbun poll conducted earlier, on the 18th–19th, the Takaichi Cabinet's approval was just 41%, surpassed by disapproval at 44%. In a Jiji Press poll (10th–13th), approval among those in their 60s plunged from 63.7% to 39.9%, highlighting a clear loss of public support.
Major outlets assessed that the Cabinet's approval collapsed because it forced through revisions to the Imperial House Law out of step with public opinion. The amendment does not recognize a woman as emperor. It mainly proposes granting succession eligibility by adopting as royal family members male-line descendants from former princely houses instead of female heirs. However, according to a Kyodo News poll, 81% of Japanese respondents supported recognizing a woman emperor. In the Nikkei poll, 59% answered that both a woman emperor and a female-line emperor should be recognized. As a result of pushing through changes that ignored public sentiment, an Asahi Shimbun poll found that 60% of Japanese people said "the Imperial House Law revision failed to gain public understanding."
Arrogant management of the Diet and economic policies that are hard to feel in real life also fanned the approval slide. In a Kyodo News poll, 57.5% criticized the administration's Diet management as "coercive," topping half. On the auxiliary capital law, 66.9% said debate was "insufficient." The auxiliary capital law would establish an alternative wide-area local government to replace the functions of the Tokyo metropolitan area and its vicinity when major disasters occur. In the Yomiuri poll, 71% said they "do not evaluate positively" the government's price measures.
Even amid a sense of crisis, Prime Minister Takaichi showed a gap with public sentiment. At the House of Representatives Budget Committee on the 27th, when asked about the reasons for the approval decline, the prime minister avoided a clear answer, saying it was "difficult to analyze by myself." On complaints about high inflation, the prime minister insisted on results, saying, "Among the Group of Seven (G7), we have the lowest inflation rate and the highest real wage growth." On calls to set up an expert panel to discuss a woman emperor, the prime minister drew a line, saying, "There are no immediate plans." Experts noted that as long as the rigid policy stance continues, a reversal in public opinion will be difficult.