Seventy per cent of Japanese voters want to get rid of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a survey showed today, marking more bad news for the unpopular government leader who is likely to face a no-confidence vote as early as this week.
Mr Kan is under fire for his handling of the humanitarian aid to victims of an earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan's northeast on March 11th and the world's nuclear crisis triggered by the disaster.
Japan's biggest opposition Liberal Democratic Party said last week it would submit a no-confidence motion to parliament to force Mr Kan to resign or call a snap election.
The motion could be submitted as early as this week, a senior LDP lawmaker said yesterday and all opposition parties, except for tiny Social Democratic Party, have said they will back it.
Political analysts say, however, Mr Kan stands a good chance of surviving the vote as it remains doubtful whether the LDP could win over enough disaffected members of Mr Kan's own Democratic Party for the motion to pass. More than 70 out of more than 300 Democrats would have to defect to secure passage.
A survey by Nikkei business daily suggested the public would not be too disappointed if Mr Kan survived the challenge.
While nearly three quarters of those polled said the government had done a poor job of tackling the crisis at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, nearly half thought this was not the right time for a change at the top and Mr Kan should remain through the initial stage of dealing with the crisis.
That could mean that Mr Kan stays into next year, given doubts over whether Tokyo Electric Power, the plant's operator, can stabilise the facility by January as planned. Kyodo news agency quoted a senior official at the utility as saying there could be a major delay in work.
Government officials have said they will continue working on a plan to bring public finances back under control even as Tokyo is forced to juggle the biggest reconstruction effort since World War Two with managing the nuclear crisis.
The Yomiuri newspaper reported today that a centrepiece of the fiscal plan would likely be a proposal to double Japan's 5 per cent sales tax, among the lowest in major economies, in gradual stages by 2015.
Reuters