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TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s poll ratings have rebounded a month after disastrous election results left his premiership hanging by a thread, a clutch of surveys showed Monday.
Ishiba took the helm of the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last year and has since lost his majority in both houses of parliament, most recently in upper chamber elections in July.
But the self-confessed defense policy “geek” and maker of model ships has defied calls to resign from within the party, which has governed Japan almost non-stop since the 1950s.
According to one poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily published Monday, the approval rating for Ishiba’s cabinet was 39 percent, a record 17 points higher than after the July 20 vote.
More respondents (50 percent) now think Ishiba should remain than resign (42 percent), the questionnaire showed, a reversal from July, when 54 percent said he should go and 35 percent stay.
Another poll conducted by Kyodo News put support at 35.4 percent, up 12.5 points from last month after the upper house election, while the disapproval rating stood at 49.8 percent.
A third survey by the Mainichi Shimbun put backing for the prime minister at 33 percent, a rise of four points, the first time it has been over 30 percent since February.
The Yomiuri put the recovery down to the recent trade deal with the United States and efforts by Ishiba’s government to curb the recent meteoric rise in rice prices.
US President Donald Trump announced a “massive” trade deal with Japan only two days after the upper house election, cutting threatened US tariffs to 15 percent from 25 percent, while lowering those on cars to the same level.
Voter backing of Ishiba’s handling of US trade negotiations rose to 42 percent from 29 percent in June.
An overwhelming 86 percent said they approved of the government’s decision to shift policy toward increasing rice production.
Rice prices have skyrocketed due to supply problems linked to a very hot summer in 2023 and panic-buying after a “megaquake” warning last year, among other factors.
Ishiba has appointed a new farm minister – the popular Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, a potential challenger – and his government has released emergency stocks in an effort to bring down prices.
According to media reports, the LDP plans to conduct a review of last month’s election, to be followed by a decision on whether to hold a party leadership election.
Ishiba, 68, said after a recent LDP plenary meeting, where some lawmakers reportedly urged him to step down, that he would “consider appropriately” the results of this investigation.
“I’d like to deepen my thinking as various things are going on simultaneously,” he said.
“Even within the LDP, passion for holding a party leadership election... has been diminishing,” said Mikitaka Masuyama, politics professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
“They may face criticism that instead of doing their jobs and addressing everyday life struggles like inflation, the LDP is holding a party leadership election,” Masuyama said.

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s parliament passed a law on Monday that will allow people convicted of treason to be stripped of their citizenship, a new measure that comes amid a sustained crackdown on opponents of the long-ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
The law, approved by 120 of the 125 members of the CPP-dominated National Assembly, will allow the state to revoke the citizenship of anyone convicted of conspiring with foreign countries or plotting against Cambodian interests.
Many prominent political figures have fled Cambodia to avoid arrest amid intensified efforts to stifle the CPP’s opposition in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2017 banning of the Cambodian National Rescue Party ahead of an election the following year.
Cambodia has since held mass trials involving more than 100 opposition figures, with many jailed in absentia on treason and incitement charges.
The CPP has been widely condemned by activists and Western countries, including the United States, for a crackdown on remnants of the opposition that has ensured the past two elections were virtually one-horse races.
The government denies targeting opponents and says those sentenced to prison were law-breakers. Notable dissidents in exile include the now defunct CNRP’s co-founders Sam Rainsy, who has lived in France since 2016, and Mu Sochua, now in the United States.
Cambodia’s influential longtime former prime minister and CPP President Hun Sen said in late June that Cambodia needed to take action against nationals who “side with foreign nations.” Rainsy, who has already been banned from entering Cambodia, has long been Hun Sen’s fiercest critic.
He has accused him of mishandling a border dispute with Thailand that spiralled into armed conflict last month, alleging corruption by the military and a government cover-up of civilian deaths, which both have denied.