Takaichi Maintaines Popularity with Performance

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi keeps high approval rate even after her failure of passing FY2026 budget bill by the end of March. Her popularity is based on her performance that she was fighting against opposition powers or her diplomatic style in dealing with powerful leaders in the world. It is likely that she introduces method of former prime minister Jun-ichiro Koizumi whose government was dubbed as “theatrical politics.” 

The poll of Nikkei Shimbun in late March showed 72 percent of approval for Takaichi Cabinet, 3 points of increase from February, with 23 percent of disapproval. 65 percent of responders positively evaluated her meeting with President of the United States Donald Trump at White House in mid-March. Also, 65 percent thought that her measures on soaring price of oil, caused by U.S. military attack on Iran, was appropriate.

 

In another poll conducted by Mainichi Shimbun, the approval rate was 58 percent, declined from 61 percent in the previous month by 3 points. The paper estimated that Takaichi Cabinet still maintained relatively high popularity. The responders who preferred her diplomacy in the meeting with Trump occupied 42 percent, while 22 percent did not approve it. Those who thought her attitude to the Diet as a problem consisted 37 percent of all, mostly tied with their oppositions with 38 percent.

 

Takaichi was successful in avoiding Trump’s direct request for Japan to send troops to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian Revolutionary Guard effectively block the ships to pass. In the dinner hosted by Trump, she performed a song making her hand looked like a microphone. It reminded a performance of Koizumi who played an “air guitar” in Graceland, hometown of Elvis Presley in 2006.

 

Takaichi’s failure of passing FY2026 budget bill in the Diet by the end of March did not affect her popularity. It was her decision in January that Takaichi had a snap election, even if it might be spending time for discussing the budget bill. Although she attempted to pass the Diet as soon as possible, backed by a supermajority of her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Lower House, it faced firm resistance from the opposition parties that maintained majority in the Upper House.

 

In the polls, it appeared that the people who supported Takaichi had certain expectation to her leadership. It indicated that they do not care whether she gave in opposition powers in the Upper House, but they liked her attitude to challenge majority power. It also reminds of Kozumi who faced another kind of opposition powers within his own LDP. It was just like a TV show of samurai, who cuts down enemies with his sword. That was why his politics was theatric.

 

Although Koizumi promoted radical reforms by unilateral exercise of his power as a prime minister, he maintained high popularity through his tenancy. Takaichi’s performance of acting as a heroine surrounded by opposition enemies, or as a girl who deals with a political macho man as Trump, may attract Japanese audience.