About 68 percent of Tokyo residents are interested in metropolitan administration policies, the lowest percentage in the past decade, according to results of a Tokyo Metropolitan Government poll released Friday.
This represents a sharp fall from the 88 percent high in 1995, when comedian-turned lawmaker Yukio Aoshima was elected governor. Over the past two years the percentage has continued to decline.
Topping the list of reasons for the respondents' indifference, 28.6 percent said policies would be the same no matter who was governor, while 22.8 percent find government policies difficult to understand. The poll was conducted in July and sent to 3,000 randomly selected Tokyo residents, 2,105 responded.
Development of policies to deal with issues concerning the elderly topped the list of concerns at 39 percent, followed by medical and sanitary issues at 34.4 percent, price and consumer issues at 27.7 percent and waste disposal issues at 27 percent.
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