Tokyo, April 13 (Jiji Press)--The approval rate of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet in April fell 0.9 percentage point from the previous month to 38.4 pct, according to the results of a Jiji Press public opinion poll released on Friday.
The cabinet approval rate continued falling amid a spate of scandals including the Ministry of Finance's manipulation of documents related to a controversial state land sale to private school operator Moritomo Gakuen and the Defense Ministry's suspected cover-up of Ground Self-Defense Force overseas mission reports.
The disapproval rate rose 2.2 points to 42.6 pct, above the support rate for the second straight month.
The April poll, conducted for four days through Monday, preceded the revelation this week of a new document related to a cronyism scandal involving Kake Educational Institution, a school operator headed by an old friend of Abe.
In the document, Tadao Yanase, then executive secretary to the prime minister, is quoted as saying in 2015 that the Kake group's plan to open the country's first new veterinary school in decades was "the prime minister's matter."