The disapproval rate for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Cabinet stands at 44.1 percent, surpassing for the first time the approval rate, which came to 41.5 percent, according to a nationwide poll by Kyodo News.
The poll, conducted Sunday and Monday, also showed that a combined 73.3 percent of the respondents believe Ichiro Ozawa, secretary general of the Democratic Party of Japan, should step down either from the party's No. 2 post or as a lawmaker over the scandal involving a land purchase by his fund management body.
In the previous poll a week earlier, the approval rate was 50.8 percent while the disapproval rate was 33.2 percent.
On the Upper House election this summer, 28.4 percent said they will vote for the DPJ, while 24.7 percent said they will vote for the Liberal Democratic Party.
Close to 90 percent said the Ozawa scandal will have an impact on the election, which is crucial to the DPJ's hopes of smoothly getting its bills through the Upper House.
As many as 86.0 percent of the survey respondents said they were not convinced by Ozawa's explanation for the scandal, against a mere 6.3 percent who said they found it sufficient.