Japan PM given low marks in first six months-poll

TOKYO, (Reuters) Nearly two-thirds of Japanese voters gave Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government low marks for its first six months in office, with gaffes by ministers cited as a top factor, a newspaper poll showed on Saturday.

The percentage of respondents who found nothing to commend was 19.8 percent, while those who found performance lacklustre came to 40.3 percent, the poll by the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun showed.

The poll of 1,741 voters from March 17-18 also showed the percentage of voters calling performance "somewhat commendable" was at 31.8, while only 4.5 percent of respondents said the government was doing a highly commendable job.

Compared with a similar poll in December, the results showed growing voter dissatisfaction with the government, a worry for Abe ahead of a key upper house election in July.

Abe, who took office in September, has been struggling to maintain the high support ratings he enjoyed at the start of his term after a string of gaffes by his cabinet ministers and media reports of officials misreporting political funds.

The poll showed 54 percent of voters were disappointed by the gaffes, while 38 percent gave the government a thumbs-down for their handling of the funding scandals. In late January, his health minister caused a furore by referring to women as "birth-giving machines", prompting opposition parties to call for his resignation.

The minister apologised repeatedly but refused to step down, and Abe stood by him. The poll made no mention of Abe's own remarks earlier this month on women, mostly Asian and many of them Korean, who served Japanese soldiers in brothels during World War Two.

Abe sparked outrage overseas by saying there was no proof Japan's government or army had kidnapped women to work as wartime sex slaves, although he has said he stood by a 1993 apology acknowledging official involvement in the brothels.