In a Members post four months ago, I noted that Abe wasn’t getting any boost in his approval ratings despite Japan’s great performance with the COVID-19 crisis.
It’s amazing how much has changed since then. And none of it in Abe’s favor.
It turns out that lauding Japan as a COVID-19 success story may have been premature. Japan is now contending with a resurgence of the pandemic that’s largely focused on Tokyo but appears to be spreading. As of this weekend, Tokyo was consistently reporting 100+ new cases a week, even though testing is steady. As Motoko Rich of the New York Times notes, the positivity rate for infections is steadily increasing. A worrisome sign.
But Abe has had much more than the COVID-19 crisis to contend with. He was already dealing with a major scandal before the pandemic. Opponents have charged that Abe used the Prime Minister’s annual Cherry Blossom Viewing party to benefit his donors and allies. The government’s lack of transparency over who was and was not invited to the party left most voters feeling the PM had not fully accounted for his actions.
Since the pandemic, the scandals have continued to pile up. After my March post, Abe ran into huge trouble when he tried to change Japan’s public prosecutor law to keep a crony of his in power in Tokyo. The backlash was harsh, with many prominent celebrities and politicians decrying the move.
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But the story got even worse. Japanese gossip mag Bunshun Online soon broke a story that the prosecutor in question, Kurokawa Hiromu, had met with reports from the Asahi Shinbun and Sankei Shinbun newspapers to gamble on mahjong at his house. This was a clear violation of the state of emergency in effect in Japan at that time. Moreover, gambling in Japan – outside of pachinko parlors and Japan’s planned Integrated Resorts – is strictly illegal. I.e., not something you’d expect the man Abe was fashioning to be the next Attorney General to be doing. Kurokawa went from Abe’s darling to resigning his office in a matter of days.
That’s when the trouble really started for Abe. His numbers had held steady during the initial phase of the pandemic. But after the Kurokawa scandal, they dropped like a rock. By late May, the liberal-leaning Mainichi was reporting that Abe’s disapproval had risen to 64%, and his approval had sunk to 27% – his lowest point since the Kage and Moritomo Gakuen scandals nearly sank his administration.
But wait – it gets even worse!
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In June, former Justice Minister Kawai Katsuyuki and his wife, House of Councillors member Kawai Anri, were arrested on suspicion of offering bribes in exchange for votes. On the plus side for Abe, his disapproval rating in the Mainichi poll had increased slightly at this time, to 56%. But the same poll shows that 59% of the Japanese public feels Abe bears responsibility for the scandal.
These back to back failures have taken a toll. In the latest NHK polling from June 23rd, Abe’s approval/disapproval stands at 49% to 36% – the worst negative gap recorded by NHK since the start of the second Abe Cabinet. While a small margin approves of the Abe government’s response to COVID-19 (+4%), a full 67% says the government should change Japanese law to grant itself more enforcement power to deal with the pandemic. (Japan’s law, officials contended, prevented it from ordering a full lockdown during the recently redacted state of emergency.)

Another recent poll conducted by Jiji.com has even worse news for Abe. I’ve written here before about how several key parts of Abe’s legislative agenda are opposed by the Japanese public. Now it seems that his primary legislative goal – revising Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution to allow Japan to build an armed forces with offensive capability – is now opposed by a full 69% of the country. It’s even opposed by 57% of Abe’s own supporters.
For his part, Abe’s making a Hail Mary pass to save the initiative by pushing for a public vote. He appears to be gambling that Japan’s low voter turnout will allow him to push this measure through before his term ends. However, with such staunch opposition to the bill from even his own supporters, it’s hard to see how it passes.
In short, both Abe and his major policy initiatives are more unpopular than ever. In this environment, it’s impossible to see how he gains any traction on his agenda during the remainder of his term. The Abe government is, for all intents and purposes, a zombie government, lumbering slowly to the inexorable end of its fourth and final term.
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