Abe’s popularity plummets to record low in Japan polls

Bloomberg

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saw his support tumble in weekend opinion polls as anger continues to rise over a cronyism scandal.
Two of the polls — conducted separately by the Asahi newspaper and NNN news network — showed public backing for Abe had fallen to its lowest level since he took office in 2012. They were conducted after the finance ministry admitted last week it had doctored documents related to the discounted sale of public land to a nationalist school operator with ties to Abe’s wife.
Abe on Monday denied that he or his wife, Akie, were involved with the land sale or document-tampering, and called on the finance ministry to carry out a thorough inquiry and to restore trust. A finance ministry official committed suicide earlier this month, leaving a note saying that he feared being blamed for the scandal, public broadcaster NHK reported.
“Public trust in the administration as a whole has been shaken by
the alteration of documents, and I take this seriously,” Abe said on Monday. He reiterated that any involvement in the land sale would merit resignation.
The scandal has thrown doubt over Abe’s chances of winning a ruling party leadership election in September, which would give him a shot at becoming the country’s longest-serving prime minister. In the shorter term, it will hamper his government’s plans to pass labor market reforms and slow the debate on constitutional revision.
“The opposition is very weak and I don’t think people want them to take over,” said Tsuneo Watanabe, senior research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.