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TOKYO, July 18-- The approval rating for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet plummeting to a record low in the latest media polls is a testament to the Japanese public's growing mistrust of the prime minister and his closest Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) allies, political experts here told Xinhua. Numerous opinion polls have showed that support for the premier's cabinet has hit an all-time low, including one survey revealing that the public's approval rating had tumbled as much as 15.2 points to just 29.9 percent, the lowest since Abe took office in December 2017. The meteoric drop in support, experts attested, has been triggered by a number of factors, one of which has been Abe's failure to properly account for himself in matters related to an influence-peddling scandal involving the selection of a new school to be opened by an operator who is a close friend of Abe's. Other detrimental issues, according to the polls and political watchers here, are connected to his ministers' and LDP lawmakers' gaffes, all of which have left the future course of the Abe administration and the prime minister's leadership itself on very shaky ground. "With each new scandal involving the prime minister or other senior politicians from the ruling camp, such as allegations that he used his influence to help his friend at Kake Educational Institute secure the opening of a new school in a special deregulated zone, Abe's grip on power loosens," Asian affairs commentator Kaoru Imori told Xinhua. | 
