Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, fifth from left, pose with other participants at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima on May 21. Pool's approval rating for the Kishida Cabinet exceeded the disapproval rating for the first time since August following the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed.
Forty-six percent of respondents voiced approval for the cabinet, compared with 42 percent who did not.
The approval rating rose from 38 percent in the previous survey conducted in April, while the disapproval rating fell from 45 percent.
The approval score was 51 percent, higher than the 39 percent disapproval score.
However, among female survey participants, the approval score was 40 percent, well below the 46 percent disapproval score.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chaired the G 7 summit on May 19-21, the seventh summit of industrialized democracies hosted by Japan.
Fifty-nine percent of responders said Kishida displayed leadership as G-7 president, compared with 32 percent who said he did not.
It was the first time for a Cabinet approval rating to clearly increase after a G 7 summit held in Japan, although some past surveys were based on interviews, making it difficult to make a simple comparison.
Voters were almost evenly divided on whether the G-7 leaders made progress toward the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. A combined 47 percent of responders said that some or substantial accomplishments were made toward that goal, while a combined 49 percent said few or no achievements were made in Hiroshima, the site of the first atomic bombing by the United States in the closing days of World War II.
The summit focused on co-operation between the United States and Ukraine in the war against Russia. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to Japan and met with G-7 and other world leaders.
A combined 61 percent of respondents said substantial or substantial achievements were made on the Ukraine issue in Hiroshima, well above the combined 37 percent who said few or no achievements were made.
A combined 76 percent of responders said it was problematic for Kishida's son, Shotaro, who served as his executive secretary in charge of political affairs, to hold a year-end party at the Prime Minister's official residence with relatives.
The report said that 44 per cent said it was a big problem and 32 per cent said it was a problem to some extent.
19 percent of those polled said the party was not a serious problem, and 5 percent said it was not a problem at all.
Seventy-six percent of survey participants said there is no need to hold a lower-house election at an early date, up from 67 percent in the April survey.
At the same time, eighteen percent said a lower house election should be held as soon as possible, down from 22 percent in the previous survey.
Many lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have urged Kishida to dissolve the lower house for a snap election since the G-7 summit ended.
However, only 13 percent of the polls said a lower house election should be held as soon as possible.
The survey was conducted through calls to randomly selected telephone numbers. 417 valid answers were received from voters contacted by fixed telephones, or 48 percent, and 713 from those contacted by cellphones, or 41 percent.