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A new poll shows that while an overwhelming number of voters do not want Fumio Kishida to continue serving as prime minister, there is no clear favorite to replace him.  

The Asahi Shimbun survey conducted on July 20-21 showed that 74 percent of voters do not support Kishida staying on after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in September, compared with 18 percent who want him to remain in the top post.

When asked to choose a favored replacement, respondents were about equally divided between Shigeru Ishiba, former LDP secretary-general, and Shinjiro Koizumi, former environment minister.

According to the nationwide telephone survey, the Kishida Cabinet’s approval rating rose to 26 percent, from 22 percent in the previous survey in June, while the disapproval rating fell to 61 percent, from 64 percent.

Even among LDP supporters, 57 percent said they do not want Kishida to be re-elected as party president and continue to serve as prime minister, compared with 40 percent who wanted him to remain in the post.

A similar question was asked in a survey conducted in August 2021 before the previous LDP leadership election.

At the time, 60 percent of respondents said they did not want then Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to stay on after the LDP race, compared with 25 percent who wanted him to do so.

LDP supporters were almost evenly split, with 42 percent not wanting Suga to stay on and 44 percent wanting him to do so.

The latest survey asked voters to choose the person best suited for prime minister from among nine LDP Diet members.

Ishiba topped the list with support from 21 percent of respondents while Koizumi finished second, selected by 17 percent.

They were followed by Sanae Takaichi, minister in charge of economic security, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Taro Kono, minister for digital transformation, who all received support from 7 percent of respondents.

Kishida placed sixth, chosen by 6 percent.

Among LDP supporters, 22 percent picked Ishiba, and 21 percent cited Koizumi.

Kishida came in third with 14 percent.

Kono, Takaichi and Kamikawa received support from 8 percent, 7 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

The survey also asked voters whether they want an LDP-led administration to remain in power or a non-LDP administration to take over.

Forty-eight percent said they prefer a future administration of a party or parties other than the LDP, compared with 38 percent who chose an LDP-led administration.

The gap narrowed from a survey conducted in May, in which 54 percent sought a non-LDP administration and 33 percent were in favor of an LDP-led administration.

The LDP’s support rating rose to 24 percent, from 19 percent in the June survey, while the support rating for the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan fell to 5 percent, from 8 percent in June.

Unaffiliated voters accounted for 59 percent, unchanged from the June survey.

The percentage is the sum of two groups of respondents: those who do not support any party and those who did not answer or did not know.

The survey was conducted through calls to randomly generated telephone numbers. There were 429 valid responses from voters contacted by fixed telephone lines, or 46 percent of the total, and 606 responses from those contacted by cellphones, or 38 percent.

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