Prime Minister Fumio Kishida received a much-sought rise in his support rate after a trip to Ukraine met with broad approval from the public ahead of a series of local and special elections.
A survey by the Nikkei newspaper and TV Tokyo conducted from Friday through Sunday found that 48% of respondents said they supported Kishida’s Cabinet, up 5 percentage points on the previous month and — for the first time in seven months — higher than the proportion who said they didn’t support him.
Kishida’s sagging public approval had made it harder for him to control his long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party and threatened its prospects in a series of local elections next month. The success of the surprise visit to Kyiv and a rare summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol have revived talk of a general election as soon as June.