Support for Japan PM falls

04 July 2009 - 06H41

Public support for Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso has plunged below 20 percent as his party faces losing its grip on power in upcoming elections, according to a poll.

The rating of 19.7 percent was down from 22.9 percent in June and is the third consecutive decline, the Yomiuri Shimbun said in its latest snapshot of voter sentiment.

On Wednesday, Aso named two new cabinet ministers as he explores ways to improve his sagging popularity ahead of elections which he must call by September.

But the poll showed 56 percent of respondents did not support the move, which was backed by just 16 percent of those questioned.

Twenty-four percent said they wanted Aso to stay in power following the elections, while 41 percent said they wanted opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama as prime minister.

Aso's Liberal Democratic Party has been out of office only once since 1955, when a coalition of several opposition groups took power for just 10 months in 1993-94.

The daily carried out the survey on Thursday and Friday, questioning 1,021 eligible voters across the nation.