Tokyo, January 28: More than two-thirds of Japanese voters are worried about Tokyo’s strained ties with ally Washington, a survey showed on Thursday, the latest sign that a row over a U.S. airbase is eroding support for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
The Jan. 26-27 survey by the Nikkei business daily also showed that 47 percent of voters did not back Hatoyama’s 4-month-old government, outpacing the 45 percent who did.
That was in line with other recent polls showing the airbase feud, a funding scandal embroiling the ruling Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) powerful Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa and doubts about the premier’s competence are eating away at voter support.
Hatoyama’s slipping ratings could threaten the Democrats’ chances in an upper house election expected in July that the party needs to win to avoid policy deadlock as Japan grapples with a weak economy, a bulging debt and a fast-ageing population.
The Democrats have a huge majority in parliament’s powerful lower house, but need the help of two tiny allies to get laws through the upper chamber smoothly, complicating policy-making.
“The question is whether the DPJ can get a majority on its own,” said Sophia University professor Koichi Nakano.
“Certainly, it is harder now.”
Hatoyama’s handling of the dispute over a plan to relocate the U.S. Marines’ Futenma airbase on Okinawa island has fanned voter mistrust, and his room to manoeuvre narrowed further after an anti-base candidate won a local election on Sunday.
A senior ruling party lawmaker told Reuters on Wednesday that forcing through a 2006 deal with the U.S. would be close to impossible.
“Overriding the will of local people to go back to the original plan would be extremely difficult,” said Akihisa Nagashima, parliamentary secretary for defence, although he stressed he was not speaking on behalf of the ministry.
OPPOSITION LDP LANGUISHES
Opposition parties have been grilling Hatoyama in parliament, where an extra budget for the year to March 31 aimed at propping up the economy was enacted on Thursday.
Lawmakers will next turn their attention to a record $1 trillion budget for 2010/11, delay in passage of which could hurt the economy and weigh on Japanese share prices.
Hatoyama, who has pledged to take a diplomatic stance less dependent on the United States, repeated in parliament his promise to find a solution to the base row by the end of May. But he declined to say whether he would step down if he failed to do so.
Washington wants Japan to implement a 2006 deal to move Futenma’s facilities to a less crowded part of Okinawa.
But Hatoyama is under pressure from small coalition allies to stick to a pledge to move the base off the island — strategically located close to Taiwan and the Korean peninsula — where many residents resent the concentration of U.S. forces.
The Futenma dispute has strained ties with Washington as the two countries consider how to revamp the 50-year-old alliance.
The Nikkei poll showed that 67 percent of voters were worried about ties with the United States, up 12 points from last month.
Sixty-five percent wanted Ozawa, whose electioneering skills are seen vital to a Democratic Party upper house election win, to resign over the funding scandal that has led to the arrest of three of his aides on suspicion of misreporting donations.
Ozawa, questioned on a voluntary basis by prosecutors on Saturday, has denied intentional wrongdoing and said he would not quit, but many analysts think he will have to resign eventually.
The Democrats’ woes, however, have not given much of a boost to the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), now out of power after more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule.
Former health minister Yoichi Mazuzoe, an LDP member who media say is considering starting a new party, topped the list of most popular politicians in the Nikkei survey with 26 percent.
But LDP leader Sadakazu Tanigaki tied with Ozawa in last place with just 2 percent, well behind Land and Transport Minister Seiji Maehara with 14 percent and Hatoyama and his foreign minister, Katsuya Okada, tied for third with 8 percent.
—Agencies