Word: abely
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...Abe has already paid a political price for falling out of step with voters. His approval ratings fell to 40% in an early February poll, down from nearly 70% when he took office in September, and for the first time more people disapproved of him than approved. After early diplomatic successes in China and South Korea, scandals and controversies have entangled several top administration officials. There's growing doubt about his passion for carrying out economic and political reforms initiated by his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, and his own advisers privately admit that the Prime Minister-who often seems scripted...
...reality, Abe is unlikely to fall so quickly. The LDP holds an unassailable majority in the Diet's lower house, and approval ratings for the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) are even worse than the Prime Minister's. Abe's supporters also argue that he remains relatively popular by the lackluster historical standards of most Japanese leaders, and that he hasn't received enough credit for repairing Japan's often fractious relations with its Asian neighbors. Shoichi Nakagawa, the LDP's powerful policy chief, asserts that the Abe Cabinet takes everyday issues just as seriously as it does...
...Abe has taken the issue of poverty and social disparity more seriously than Koizumi did, appointing a special minister to take charge of a program designed to help the unemployed and underemployed refine their job skills. "We're hardly disregarding people's kitchens," says Nobutaka Machimura, a former Foreign Minister and influential LDP Diet member. But when Abe's feel-good rhetoric clashes with the economic realities of Japan today, he can look disingenuous or simply ineffective. At the LDP convention in January, Abe declared that "economic growth is not for business enterprises, it is for the public," and later...
...That complaint gets to the heart of Abe's political quandary. Japanese who feel uncomfortable with the reforms of recent years see Abe as just a friendlier version of the disliked Koizumi-while those eager for faster reforms have come to view Abe as an obstacle. Hisashi Hirano, an official with the Yubari government, couldn't stand Koizumi, but says that at least with him, "we knew where we were headed. With Abe you can't understand what his intentions are." At the same time, Koizumi's most ardent fans-especially the young, unaffiliated voters he lured back into politics...
...also hurts that the political issues Abe has spent most of his energy on-constitutional revision and international diplomacy-haven't captured the imagination of voters more concerned with their pocketbooks. "These are important political themes," says Minoru Morita, a liberal political analyst. "But they are not what the Japanese people are demanding." Abe's allies dismiss that line of criticism as overly simplistic, arguing that constitutional revision is a bold move that will enable Japan to take control of its destiny and reimagine itself as a nation. "Many systems in Japan haven't changed since the Meiji period...