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Bloomberg
Support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fell in two polls released on Monday, three weeks before a general election where Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike’s new Party of Hope threatens to eat into his majority.
The premier’s approval rate dropped below his disapproval rate in polls by Kyodo News and the Asahi newspaper. Almost 46 percent of respondents to the Kyodo survey said they saw Abe as an appropriate person to be prime minister, compared with 33 percent who chose Koike, whose power base is largely in and around the capital.
About 24 percent said they’d vote for Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party with nearly 15 percent opting for Koike’s party in the proportional representation section of the October 22 election. Forty-three percent said they hadn’t decided.
Abe called the snap election more than a year ahead of schedule, seeking to nip in the bud the challenge from Koike.