国际英语新闻：Nearly 70% Japanese back Kan in ruling party election: survey

TOKYO, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- About 69.9 percent of the respondents in a survey preferred Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan as the leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), according to the Kyodo News on Saturday.

The percentage far surpassed those who support party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa, Kyodo News said.

The telephone survey, conducted Friday and Saturday, revealed that about 15.6 percent of those surveyed back Ozawa in the Sept. 14 DPJ leadership election.

Among the respondents who are supporters of DPJ, 82.0 percent said they want Kan to remain as leader. The finding may well affect voting by eligible DPJ legislators, regional assembly members and rank-and-file supporters of the party, Kyodo News reported.

Public support for Kan's Cabinet climbed to 48.1 percent, up 9. 4 percentage points from the previous survey early this month, while the disapproval rate was 36.2 percent, down 8.6 points for the first improvement since the July 11 upper house election, it said.