The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been shaken by the low public support rating for new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet shown by a recent poll.
"It's an extremely tough election. We are doing it in the face of unprecedented headwinds," Ishiba said on Thursday in Saku, Nagano Prefecture, in a speech for an LDP candidate in the Oct. 27 election for the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the country's parliament. He apologized for his party's massive slush fund scandal, saying, "Please forgive us."
In October's Jiji poll, whose results were announced Thursday, public support for the Ishiba Cabinet stood at 28.0%, alarming many in the LDP since a support rating under 30% is said to signal that the administration is in the "danger zone."
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