TOKYO -- Support for Japan's prime minister hit a new low Tuesday, making him the least popular prime minister in decades to lead this country's ruling party into parliamentary elections.
Support for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's government has dropped to just 19 percent, according to a new poll by the Asahi, a major Japanese newspaper. The poll, conducted by telephone Sunday and Monday, showed Mori's support rating had fallen from 41 percent just a month earlier.The rating was the lowest for a prime minister heading into general elections since the poll was first conducted in 1946, the Asahi reported. As is customary with Japanese polls, it gave no margin of error.
Mori has indicated he will hold elections June 25. It is within his right as prime minister to set the date, and he could postpone the elections until October.
But experts believe that backing away from the June 25 date now is impossible for Mori, despite his low support.
"If he were to move back the date, political chaos would ensue. He would have to step down," said Minoru Morita, a well-known political analyst.
Though the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is not expected to lose hold of the government, Mori's plunging popularity could make it difficult for them to hold their current strength in the lower house.
"If Mori makes another blunder between now and the election, he'll put himself in a very severe situation," Morita said.
Analysts had forecast an outpouring of voter sympathy for the late Keizo Obuchi, whom Mori replaced on April 6. Obuchi -- whose birthday is June 25 -- had suffered a stroke days earlier, and he died May 14.
That support has appeared to evaporate amid a series of scandals over the administration's handling of Obuchi's illness, and reports that Mori was caught in a brothel while he was a college student and attended a 1995 wedding reception where a gangster was among the guests.
Mori has denied knowing a gangster was at the reception, and he is suing the magazine that printed the brothel allegations.
He has gotten himself into still more trouble over remarks that Japan is a "divine nation" with the emperor at the center -- recalling for many the emperor-worship that drove Japan's wartime aggression.
He has since denied any intention of reviving the prewar state-sanction of Japan's indigenous Shinto faith.
Opposition parties Tuesday submitted a censure resolution against Mori in Parliament for the "divine nation" remarks. They plan to put forward a no-confidence motion against the premier on Wednesday.