TOKYO (MNI) – Amid falling public support, Prime Minister Naoto Kan
has decided to reshuffle his cabinet and the ruling Democratic Party of
Japan’s top ranks after a party leadership vote in September that he
must win, the Nikkei and other newspapers reported on Wednesday.

Kan met with Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who lost her
parliamentary seat in the upper house election Sunday that left the
ruling coalition without a majority in the chamber.

The prime minister told Chiba to expect a “major rearrangement” of
the cabinet and asked her to stay on until then, national dailies
reported.

By revealing his plans for sweeping personnel changes, Kan appears
to be trying to pacify party members disgruntled by the election loss,
which he said was partly due to his “abrupt” proposal to begin national
debate for raising the 5% sales tax to 10% in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that its latest
telephone poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday showed that the public
approval rating of the Kan administration has slumped to 38% from 45% in
the paper’s previous survey done on July 2-4 while the disapproval
rating rose to 52% from 39%,

This compares with the 64% public support found in the Yomiuri’s
June 8-9 poll conducted just after Kan formed his cabinet, calling for a
combination of strong economic growth, fiscal consolidation and social
security.

In a similar poll conducted this week by the Kyodo News, the public
approval rating of the Kan government plunged to 36.3% from 61.5% in the
previous survey compiled by the news agency just after the Kan cabinet
was formed last month. The disapproval rating rose to 52.2% from 25.2%.

However, a majority of those surveyed in the latest Yomiuri and
Kyodo polls said they would support Kan continuing to serve as prime
minister.

The election to choose the DPJ’s next leader is likely to be held
on Sept. 5, newspaper reports said.

Candidates will have two weeks to campaign for support from voters,
who will include rank-and-file party members and registered supporters
in addition to lawmakers.

The party president serves a term of two years. The last one chosen
in a full election was Ichiro Ozawa in September 2008. He stepped down
the following year and his term was taken over by Yukio Hatoyama, who
led the DPJ’s historic rise to power in the August lower house election.

Kan replaced a downfallen Hatoyama last month and now faces a
partywide election.

tokyo@marketnews.com
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