JAPAN:Bread-and-butter issues threaten to undermine Shenzo Abe, writes David McNeillin Tokyo
Just 10 months after replacing Junichiro Koizumi as Japan's leader, Shinzo Abe is in trouble.
Despite gliding into office as Koizumi's hand-picked successor amid the country's best economic performance for a decade, the prime minister's approval rating has dived from the mid-60s to 28 per cent last week.
A weekend poll found a record 55 per cent of respondents unhappy with the government. Most cited personal dissatisfaction with the prime minister's leadership.
Those dismal figures could not have come at a worse time for Abe, who faces his first test with the voters at the end of this month. The coalition government he leads must take 64 of the 121 seats up for grabs in the July 29th upper house election or he may become part of the great pre-Koizumi political tradition of revolving-door prime ministers.
With stakes like that, it is not surprising that the charisma-free Abe is on television most days: jacket off, sleeves rolled up and striking a pose few voters have seen until now - passionate and animated. "I will not lose," he fairly bellows from campaign trucks around the country as he fights to remind voters of his achievements.
Those achievements make the prime minister's brief time in office as momentous and controversial as that of any postwar Japanese leader. In one of the busiest and most one-sided legislative campaigns in recent history, his government has radically altered the delicate constitutional balance that has anchored Japan to the world since 1945.
The Self-Defence Forces have been upgraded to the status of a full ministry and parliament is moving inexorably towards rewriting the pacifist constitution, the first two steps towards the restoration of Japan as a military power. The once sacrosanct 1947 education law has been revised to instil patriotism in young Japanese and other important changes - unthinkable a decade ago - are on the way.
Abe is proud of these achievements, which his supporters say have secured his place in history as a radical conservative who has finally dragged Japan into the real world. Unfortunately, most voters care more about bread-and-butter issues than weighty constitutional debate. And in a country where one in five people is 65 or older - the highest ratio of elderly in the developed world - few bread-and-butter issues loom larger than pensions.
So there is much unhappiness in the Abe camp that just as their man should be enjoying his moment of glory, his agenda has been derailed by a pensions scandal. Voters across the country are furious that after they have been paying for years into the national pension system, the bureaucrats who run it have lost millions of records. Day after day, the news is hijacked by distraught people who have no idea if they will have the money to survive into old age.
Panicked by polls suggesting the pension mess is the single biggest election issue for 65 per cent of voters, the government has promised emergency help.
But accusations that he was initially slow to act have helped the opposition paint Abe - the scion of a famous political family - as living in a rarefied world far above the mundane concerns of ordinary people.
The prime minister can legitimately claim he had little to do with the pension crisis, but a string of support-sapping scandals on his watch have added to the public perception of a man out of his depth. Just as Abe thought he had ridden out the suicide of minister for agriculture Toshikatsu Matsuoka during a corruption investigation, Matsuoka's successor, Norihiko Akagi, is also being accused of padding expenses.
Many commentators have noted that the prime minister has refused to sack any of his errant ministers, including minister for health Hakuo Yanagisawa, who called women "baby-making machines" earlier this year. Minister for defence Fumio Kyuma stepped down of his own accord last month after defending the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, adding to the gaffe-heavy legacy of Abe's cabinet.
With that kind of record, it is hardly surprising that the latest polls show the ruling coalition of Liberal Democrats (LDP) and New Komeito struggling seven points behind the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
Led by political veteran Ichiro Ozawa, who has promised to retire from politics if his party doesn't win a majority on July 29th, the DPJ may be in with the best chance in its 11-year career of a major political upset.
A big LDP loss would stall Abe's legislative agenda, which needs both houses of parliament onside if it is to succeed. Of course, the LDP has overcome many more serious crises in its half-century of almost unbroken power. And even if it wins big, the DPJ, a motley crew of Liberal Democrat malcontents, outcasts and independents, is unlikely to be a radical break with the past.
Still, for a man who has never had to struggle very hard for anything, the next two weeks may prove to be the fight of Abe's life.