Cabinet reshuffle fails to boost Japan PM image

By Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) - Struggling Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda's revamp of his cabinet has done little to improve the unpopular leader's image among voters, media surveys released on Sunday showed, fanning doubts over whether he can keep his job.

Fukuda, 72, tapped a popular rival, former foreign minister Taro Aso, for a top ruling party post and reshuffled his cabinet to try to erase doubts about his leadership skills among voters who are worried about a slowing economy, rising fuel and food prices and the growing welfare costs of a fast-ageing population.

Aso's appointment as the Liberal Democratic Party's No. 2 figure was applauded by most voters, the three surveys showed, with 57 percent of those responding to a Mainichi newspaper poll expressing positive expectations for the outspoken nationalist.

Aso, a dapper fan of manga comics, and the bland, bespectacled Fukuda, are a study in contrasts. Fukuda, a dovish conservative, favors warmer ties with China, while Aso is a security hawk who has made remarks that angered Asian neighbors that suffered under Japan's past military aggression.

In a troubling sign for the ruling bloc, more voters said they would cast their ballots for the main opposition Democratic Party if a general election were held now, the polls showed.

No election for parliament's powerful lower house need be held until September 2009. But speculation is simmering that Fukuda, or his successor, will call a snap poll to seek a mandate to break a deadlock born of a divided parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house and can stall legislation.

Support for Fukuda's cabinet showed little or no improvement from its predecessor in two surveys, with the liberal Asahi newspaper putting support unchanged at 24 percent and the Mainichi survey showing a three point rise to 25 percent.

COALITION PARTNER KEY?

The cabinet's approval rating jumped to 41.3 percent from 26.6 percent in a poll by the conservative Yomiuri newspaper, but only 12 percent said that their view of Fukuda had improved.

Seventy-two percent of respondents to the Yomiuri poll said their opinion of Fukuda was unchanged; 66 percent of those replying to Asahi said he had failed to exhibit leadership.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, who retained his post as top government spokesman, on Sunday dismissed the polls with their varied results and said Fukuda would stay.

"Of course, as a politician, and with his term expiring next year, he cannot not think about a general election," Machimura told Asahi TV. "I am working under the assumption that Mr. Fukuda will of course be the one who will call the election."

Japanese media, however, said that if Fukuda's ratings remained low, moves to replace him with Aso could gain momentum within the LDP and the coalition's junior party, the New Komeito.

Grass-roots election backing from the Buddhist lay group that supports the New Komeito is vital for the LDP, whose own political machine has shown signs of rusting in recent years.

"I think Fukuda picked Aso to be secretary-general with a view to transferring power before the lower house election if the cabinet's popularity doesn't pick up," the Yomiuri quoted one New Komeito member as saying.

(Additional reporting by Mayumi Negishi; Editing by David Fox)