Support rate for Cabinet slides to 54%

The public support rating for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Cabinet has fallen to 54.6 percent, down from 62.8 percent after it was launched on Sept. 2, a Kyodo News poll showed Sunday.

About 27.8 percent of those polled over the weekend didn't support the Cabinet.

The poll, conducted Saturday and Sunday, indicated that the public is split over a plan to raise taxes to help rebuild areas affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, with 46.2 percent in favor and 50.5 percent opposed.

But a clear majority backed the outline of the third extraordinary budget for fiscal 2011, which includes measures to support reconstruction from the disasters, with 63.2 percent for it and 30.3 percent opposed.

Noda has called on the opposition parties to jointly launch policy-coordinating talks on the third extra budget. But given voters' reluctance to accept tax hikes, Noda is expected to have a tough time negotiating financing measures for reconstruction.

The poll also showed an overwhelming majority of 86 percent believe that Ichiro Ozawa, a former leader of Noda's ruling Democratic Party of Japan, should give sworn testimony in the Diet over a political funds scandal that recently resulted in the conviction of three of his former secretaries.

The DPJ's support rating meanwhile stood at 27.1 percent, with the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party at 23.2 percent, the poll said.

On the long-standing issue of relocating U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture, the poll said that 32.5 percent want the base pulled from Japan, followed by 26.6 percent who support for the current plan to transfer it to Nago in northern Okinawa.

The survey was conducted by calling random, computer-generated phone numbers and drew valid responses from 1,012 eligible voters.

Meanwhile on Sunday, LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki reiterated the party's demand that Ozawa be summoned to testify at the Diet, hinting that the party may not agree to start deliberations on the third extra budget unless that happens.

"It's better if we can avoid making (the summoning) a precondition," Tanigaki said on an NHK news program.

"But you need to settle this issue so that we can start deliberations comfortably" at the Diet, Tanigaki said.

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