The approval rating for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in the latest Kyodo News survey is down to a mere 7 percent, a drop of 12 percentage points from a similar poll in December. His disapproval rating, meanwhile, has leaped to 82 percent from 65 percent.
The approval rating is the lowest for a prime minister in a Kyodo poll since April 1989, when only 4 percent of respondents supported then Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, who was on the verge of resigning over the Recruit stock-for-favors scandal.
Mori is under increasing pressure to step down from both the opposition and from elements in the ruling coalition, which includes his Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party.