Public support for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet rose to 59.1 percent this week, up 11.8 percentage points from last month, according to a Kyodo News survey released Tuesday.
Disapproval of the Cabinet was 33.2 percent in the poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday after the House of Representatives election, down 6.2 points from the previous survey, conducted shortly after Koizumi dissolved the Lower House on Aug. 8.
Of the 1,025 respondents, 39.4 percent saw the Liberal Democratic Party's landslide election victory as positive, while 24.9 percent said it was not good that the LDP won by such a large majority.
Asked what issue they felt was most important, 31.9 percent said postal privatization, the centerpiece of Koizumi's reform drive, while 26.2 percent said the pension system and child-rearing, issues the Democratic Party of Japan had focused on during the election campaign.
More than half of the respondents, or 53.4 percent, said the Diet should carefully discuss the bills to privatize Japan Post in a special session that is expected to convene Sept. 21.
About 37 percent said they hoped the bills would be passed during the session.
Some ruling coalition officials predicted the bills will be passed in about two weeks.
The support rate for the LDP was 45.9 percent, up 1.7 percentage points, for the DPJ 20.7 percent, up 0.5 point, and for the LDP's coalition ally, New Komeito, 4.7 percent, up 1.4 points. Support for the Japanese Communist Party was 3.0 percent, up 0.8 point, and for the Social Democratic Party 2.1 percent, up 0.5 point.
For the two newly established parties, the support rate was 1.0 percent for New Party Nippon and 0.9 percent for Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party).
About 20 percent of the respondents said they supported no particular party, down almost 7 percentage points.