How Scandals and Gaffes Damaged Japan PM Shinzo Abe

In less than two months, Shinzo Abe’s public support has nosedived. Polls show many voters have lost trust in the Japanese prime minister after a series of scandals. And they think his long-running administration, in power since 2012, has turned arrogant. The popularity plunge has already caused pain: Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party suffered a defeat in last month’s election for Tokyo’s local assembly. The question now is how far it will affect national elections due before the end of 2018.

His problems began with a ruckus over his wife’s connections to the operator of a kindergarten who was given a sweetheart land deal to open an elementary school. Then a second education-related scandal unfolded when a close friend of Abe’s received government support to open a veterinary college. Gaffes and missteps by LDP lawmakers haven’t helped: Defense Minister Tomomi Inada resigned July 28 over a cover-up involving the military’s reports on its peacekeeping activities in South Sudan. Neither has rushing through a controversial anti-conspiracy bill, or Abe’s apparent haste to revise the pacifist constitution.