The approval rate for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s cabinet slipped to 55.8 percent, the lowest point since she took office last October, a Kyodo News poll showed Sunday, amid lingering uncertainty in the resource-poor country over the economic fallout from the Middle East conflict.
In the weekend telephone survey, which took place after the United States and Iran reached a preliminary peace deal under which Tehran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, 54.7 percent of respondents saw no need to send the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to the key waterway to help ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels, while 36.6 percent thought otherwise.
Minesweeping operations are seen as essential to restore normal shipping traffic through the strait after the closure following U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, but the SDF has restrictions on its overseas activities under Japan’s pacifist postwar Constitution.
Takaichi’s cabinet approval rate has continued to decline in recent months, falling 5.5 percentage points from the previous survey in mid-May. In May, 70.6 percent of respondents expressed concern about disrupted supplies of petroleum-derived naphtha, a raw material for plastic products.
