TOKYO (Kyodo) -- More than 70 percent of respondents expressed concerns that recent political turmoil in South Korea, triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law declaration, could impact bilateral relations with Japan, a Kyodo News poll showed Sunday.

The weekend telephone survey also found that the approval rating for Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet fell by 3.5 percentage points from the previous survey in mid-November, dropping to 36.5 percent, amid ongoing uncertainties over his minority government's ability to enact legislation and pass the budget.

The disapproval rating rose 4.3 points to 43.1 percent.

The latest results came as Ishiba enters his second month as prime minister after being reappointed following the stinging defeat of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, in the general election in late October.

South Korea's upheaval, which led to parliament voting to impeach Yoon on Saturday, triggering the suspension of his presidential powers, could also pose a challenge to the Japanese government.

Yoon, a conservative who took office in 2022, has worked to ease long-standing tensions between South Korea and Japan over wartime labor and other disputes while also strengthening trilateral cooperation with the United States.

The percentage of respondents who said they were either "very worried" or "worried to some extent" about its impact on Japan-South Korea relations totaled 73.4 percent.

On domestic political issues, 66.0 percent called for full disclosure of political fund usage by parties, as debates continue in the Diet over further reforms to a related law following an LDP scandal involving off-the-book earnings from fundraising events.

As attention grows on social media's role in elections, 85.5 percent of respondents expressed concern about the spread of unverified information on such platforms during campaign periods, the poll showed.

An even higher percentage, 91.6 percent, said they expect social media to have a growing influence on elections.

By political party, the support rate for the LDP fell to 29.1 percent from 30.5 percent, and that for the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, dropped to 11.3 percent from 15.1 percent.

The Japan Innovation Party, the second-largest opposition group, saw its approval rating increase to 5.0 percent from 4.4 percent, while support for the Democratic Party for the People, which has gained influence since the election, rose to 12.6 percent from 9.0 percent.

The percentage of respondents who do not support any particular party rose to 22.5 percent from 20.9 percent.

The nationwide survey, conducted for two days through Sunday, called 486 randomly selected households with eligible voters and 3,492 mobile phone numbers.

It yielded responses from 428 household members and 628 mobile phone users. Some areas in Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan affected by a powerful earthquake on Jan. 1 were excluded.