TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's latest cabinet reshuffle has failed to bolster a significant increase in public support, opinion polls showed.
Public support for the new cabinet formed Monday was 42 percent in a survey by national daily the Yomiuri Shimbun, compared with 41 percent in July soon after a one-seat setback for Koizumi's party in upper house elections.
But this represented a drastic drop from 63 percent approval for the previous cabinet reshuffle a year ago.
Koizumi shook up his cabinet and key posts for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), tasking economic minister Heizo Takenaka with privatising the postal system in a reshuffle that lacked heavyweight veteran politicians.
The reshuffle "obviously failed to boost the popularity of the Koizumi administration," the Yomiuri said Wednesday about its poll of 1,002 adults nationwide.
Forty-seven percent of those surveyed said the new line-up was either very unsatisfactory or slightly unsatisfactory against 21 percent who were happy with it, the newspaper said.
One of the reasons for the discontent was that there were no surprises such as the appointment of last year of Shinzo Abe as LDP secretary general, the number two post at the party, it said.
Abe, relatively young in his 40s, has earned popularity for his hardline stance towards North Korea over its nuclear arms ambitions and abductions of Japanese nationals during the Cold War era.
Asked whether the new cabinet would be more capable of executing tasks than the previous one, 42 percent said it would not, while 24 percent said it would, according to the Yomiuri poll.
Another mass-circulation daily, the Asahi Shimbun, said its poll of 972 adults conducted this week found support for the cabinet rising to 45 percent from 39 percent in late August while disapproval fell to 35 percent from 43 percent.
But the margin of the rise in support was much smaller than a 10-percentage-point jump in September last year stemming from Abe's appointment, the Asahi said.
Abe resigned last week to take the blame for the minor setback in the July elections.
The economic daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said support for Koizumi's cabinet edged up to 44 percent in its latest poll of 1,195 people, from 42 percent in early September.
Kyodo News agency said Tuesday its poll of 1,036 voters gave Koizumi an approval rating of 49 percent, from 45 percent earlier this month.