Public support for Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has sunk further, according to surveys published yesterday and on the weekend, as he weighed potentially divisive decisions to keep the fiscal 2010-11 budget on track.

Yesterday Hatoyama gave up an important campaign pledge in order to rein in a huge public debt worrying investors and voters alike. He said he would replace a surcharge on gasoline with a new tax at the same rate due to falling tax revenues. This is a reversal of a main campaign pledge to end the surcharge.

He said he would keep his promise to hand out child allowances to families, regardless of their income. Hatoyama also said he would devote 2 trillion yen to support jobs and regional economies.

"The most important thing is to create a government that can respond to the people's hopes," Hatoyama said.

The polls, which saw backing for the government plunge as low as 48 percent in the Asahi newspaper poll, showed that voters were disappointed by Hatoyama's apparent inability to make quick decisions but open to him backtracking on election promises in view of rising debt.

Hatoyama, who swept to power in an August election, is scrambling to put together the budget for the year from April 1 by the end of this month.

Hatoyama's Democratic Party, in a coalition with two small partners, took office pledging to put more cash in consumers' pockets. Perhaps out of concern that he would be seen as vacillating, he had insisted until recently that campaign promises would be kept.

But with public debt approaching 200 percent of GDP, more than 70 percent of respondents in two surveys said they believed income limits should be set on eligibility for child allowances. More than half said the gasoline surcharge should stay in place.

Some Japanese seem to understand Hatoyama's dilemma over whether to spend more to help consumers and stimulate the economy, or backpedal to try to rein in debt.

"Generally speaking, I'd like them to cut the gasoline tax, but I'd also like them to pay back the (public) debt, so it's hard to say," said Yoshitomi Ichikuda, 39.

About three-quarters of respondents in the Asahi poll said Hatoyama had failed to show leadership.