Gaffe-prone Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori put his foot in his mouth again, plunging his Cabinet's popularity ratings to record lows just as Japan is gearing up for a June 25 general election.
The latest opinion poll published by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun showed the Cabinet's approval rating nosedived to an abysmal 16.7 percent, half the approval rating it received in an April survey. It is on par with the dismal approval rating for the 1989 Cabinet of Prime Minister Sousuke Uno, who, tainted by a sex scandal, presided over the least popular Liberal Democratic Party Cabinet ever. The disapproval rating for the Mori Cabinet was 66.2 percent.
Other major newspapers had reported similar rock-bottom ratings for the Mori Cabinet, amid growing public criticism of the prime minister's inept remarks.