TOKYO, July 14 (Xinhua) -- Support rate for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet has dropped to a record low of 29.9 percent, the first time below 30 percent since the prime minister returned to office in December 2012, according to a Jiji Press survey released on Friday.
According to the monthly opinion survey conducted from July 7 to 10, support rate for the prime minister's cabinet dropped to 29.9 percent, down 15.2 percentage points from a month earlier and the biggest monthly fall since December 2012, while the disapproval rate stood at 48.6 percent, up 14.7 points.
The biggest reason cited for disapproving the cabinet was a lack of trust in Abe, as 27.5 percent of the respondents not supporting the cabinet cited this reason, up 8.7 percentage points from the previous month, while 21.9 percent said it was because they had no expectation for the cabinet.
As for the allegations that Abe had used his influence to open a new department at a university run by a close friend in a government-designated special economic zone, 67.3 percent of the respondents said they were not convinced by Abe's explanations, while only 11.5 percent said the opposite.
Meanwhile, 79.9 percent of the respondents said the prime minister had not done his duty of making sufficient explanations to the people about the incident while 7.1 percent said the explanations were enough.
Support rate for Abe's cabinet has been declining sharply recently over a series of scandals implicating the prime minister and some of his cabinet members, as well as the ruling coalition's unorthodox way of forcing through the controversial "conspiracy" legislation in the parliament.
A survey released by Nippon News Network last week showed that the cabinet's support rate has plunged to a record low of 31.9 percent, down 7.9 percentage points from a month earlier, while the disapproval rate stood at 49.2 percent, up 7.4 points.
