72% support Hatoyama Cabinet: Kyodo poll

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TOKYO, Sept. 17 Kyodo -
The support rate for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's newly launched Cabinet hit
72 percent, one of the highest levels among recent Cabinets shortly after
inauguration, a Kyodo News survey showed Thursday.

The disapproval rating stood at 13.1 percent, according to the poll.
The nationwide telephone survey, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, in which
1,032 eligible voters responded, also showed the support rate for Hatoyama's
Democratic Party of Japan rose 6.5 percentage points to its highest-ever level
at 47.6 percent, while that for the Liberal Democratic Party came to 18.8
percent.
The support rate for the Cabinet under Junichiro Koizumi was 86.3 percent at
its start in April 2001, while that for Morihiro Hosokawa's was 75.7 percent in
August 1993.
The Cabinet of Hatoyama's predecessor Taro Aso had a support rate of 48.6
percent when it was formed in September last year.
''I'm very grateful,'' Hatoyama told reporters when asked about the Kyodo and
other polls showing similar results.
''Realizing that this is similar to a market with celebratory mood,'' he said,
''I want to boost it further by doing our job and having the people see us
steadily implementing what we have promised.''
The latest survey showed that 44.8 percent of respondents said they expect the
new Cabinet to prioritize administrative and fiscal reforms, including putting
an end to wasteful spending of tax revenues, while 37.1 percent want it to
address social security issues, including pension system reform.
It also said 35.5 percent expect to see measures to improve the economy and the
employment situation.
Hatoyama's Cabinet was launched Wednesday after the DPJ won a landslide in the
latest parliamentary election, securing 308 of the 480 seats in the House of
Representatives and ending more than half a century of nearly continuous LDP
rule.
Among major policies in the DPJ's election manifesto, abolishing the
provisionally raised gasoline tax rate won support from 51.0 percent, but
toll-free highways impressed only 17.2 percent of respondents against 58.3
percent who said they do not think much of it.
The support rates for its generous monthly child allowances of 26,000 yen per
child and income indemnity for each family engaged in agriculture, forestry and
fisheries were also relatively low at 39.1 percent and 38.8 percent.
The low support for the victorious party's key policy pledges appears to come
from public doubts about their feasibility and effectiveness as the DPJ-led
government will have to secure ample fiscal resources to realize them.
As for the choice of Ichiro Ozawa as the party's new secretary general,
respondents were divided with 41.6 percent welcoming it and 43.5 percent not.
The 18.8 percent support rate for the LDP, meanwhile, matches its low mark in
1994 when it was forced from power for the first time since its founding in
1955 by the launch of Hosokawa's anti-LDP coalition government.
As for the DPJ's tiny coalition partners, the support rates were 1.8 percent
for the Social Democratic Party and 0.4 percent for the People's New Party,
compared with 3.7 percent for New Komeito, which was the LDP's coalition
partner, 3.1 percent for the Japanese Communist Party, and 1.4 percent for Your
Party. Some 21.6 percent supported no particular party.
==Kyodo