Japan’s latest public opinion poll showed that the approval rate of the cabinet led by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga fell to 50.3%, a drop of more than 10 percentage points from the 63% approval rate last month. The last time this happened was in June 2017, when the Prime Minister of Japan was Shinzo Abe.
The former Prime Minister Abe’s “cherry blossom viewing party” scandal has recently been fermented again, which has dragged down the approval rate of Suga’s cabinet. As the Chief Cabinet Secretary of the Abe government, Yoshihide Suga raised the banner of “inheriting Abe” to power.
Japanese media reported that during Abe’s administration, he was suspected of inviting a large number of “affiliated households” to participate in the annual “cherry blossom viewing party” organized by the government every year, including more than 800 members of the Abe Support Association in his hometown of Yamaguchi Prefecture.
