Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso's approval rating has plunged below 30 percent after his economic rescue plan and lavish social life left voters unimpressed, a poll showed Monday.
Support for Aso's cabinet has fallen to 29.6 percent, down from more than 40 percent in early October and about 50 percent soon after he took office in late September, according to television network ANN.
Disapproval soared to 46.8 percent from about 37 percent in October, a weekend poll of 1,000 adults found.
The outspoken conservative has come under criticism for his frequent visits to expensive hotel bars while many voters are struggling through Japan's first recession in seven years.
"It is only natural that he is seeing support sag, although I didn't expect it would happen this rapidly," said Takayoshi Shibata, a political expert and professor emeritus at Tokyo Keizai University.
"It's no wonder people resent a man who is wining and dining at upscale hotels when they are suffering."
Shibata said Aso would be forced to call general elections due to pressure from his own party and its junior coalition partner.
"He must have put off elections in the belief that his support would rise gradually but what's happening now is totally the opposite," he said.
Government spokesman Takeo Kawamura said the prime minister, who returned Sunday from a financial crisis summit in Washington, believes he should "carry out policies without being glad or sad about every single survey."
Aso is the grandson of a prime minister and has sprawling homes in Tokyo and southern Japan, where his family ran a cement company.
He replaced the unpopular Yasuo Fukuda in September with a mission to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to victory in elections which must be held by September 2009.
