Poll: Japanese PM gets thumbs-up from 63% of Japanese
TOKYO (AP) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's first three years in office got a thumbs-up from 63 percent of respondents to a newspaper poll released Saturday.
Koizumi's personal charisma and pledges to retool the world's second-largest economy made him one of Japan's most popular leaders when he took the top job in April 2001, and the new survey by the nationally circulated Yomiuri newspaper suggested he retains much of his luster.
Released two days before his Cabinet's third anniversary, the telephone poll of 1,872 people showed 54 percent of respondents had a "somewhat favorable'' view of its achievements over the last three years and 9 percent were "very favorable.''
The 63 percent approval rating was up from 51 percent in a survey a year ago, with respondents citing Koizumi's North Korean diplomacy and privatization of postal services as his top achievements.
The disapproval rating was 35 percent.
Almost half of those surveyed said they hoped Koizumi would continue to run the country until the end of his term as president of Japan's ruling party in September 2006.
Koizumi has hinted he will step down as prime minister after completing his term as party president.
Support for Koizumi may have gotten a boost from his successful resolution this month of a crisis involving the taking of five Japanese hostages in Iraq, the newspaper said.
The five were released unharmed with the help of Islamic clerics, and Koizumi refused a demand by kidnappers to withdraw a contingent of Japanese troops from Iraq.
The Yomiuri surveyed 3,000 people nationwide by telephone on April 17-18, of whom 62.4 percent responded. The newspaper did not give a margin of error. - AP
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