Japan PM Takaichi set to call snap election
Less than three months after taking office, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is expected to call early elections in a bid to drum up more support.
Unnamed officials told local media that Takaichi will announce the date of the lower house elections at a press conference on Monday afternoon. Japanese voters will then elect 465 members of the House of Representatives, Japan’s lower and more powerful house.
Takaichi and his cabinet have enjoyed overwhelming public support since taking office last October.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) currently has 199 seats in the House of Representatives, three of which are held by its independent partners; this has the most seats of any party.
The LDP’s coalition with the Japan Innovation Party has enough seats for a majority in the lower house.
Takaichi, Japan’s first female leader, who is under the tutelage of former conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and claims to be a fan of Margaret Thatcher, is known as the country’s “Iron Lady”.
In December his cabinet approved a record defense budget of nine trillion yen ($57bn; £43bn). This comes at a time of growing concern over China, with Tokyo describing its neighbor’s military activities in the region as the “biggest strategic challenge”.
Takaichi has found himself the target of China’s ire since last November, when he made comments suggesting Japan could respond with its own self-defense force if China attacked Taiwan.
The resulting diplomatic row caused bilateral relations to plummet to their lowest point in more than a decade.
Meanwhile, Takaichi sought to establish closer relations with the United States. During US President Donald Trump’s visit to Japan last October, the two leaders heaped praise on each other and signed an agreement on rare earths. They also signed a document heralding a new “golden age” in US-Japan relations.
On domestic policy, Takaichi advocates heavy government-led spending to stimulate economic growth; A revival of the kind of stimulus measures Japan sees under the rubric of “Abenomics.”
As of December, Takaichi and his management had a 60-80% approval rating in major polls.
However, the early election gamble brings its own risks.
The LDP’s leadership treads on unstable ground, and Takaichi becomes the country’s fourth prime minister in five years. His predecessors’ terms in office were shortened by declining public support and scandals.
His predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba, also announced early elections shortly after taking office; this led to one of the LDP’s worst results ever, costing the party its majority in the House of Representatives.
Another challenge looms in the form of a new and robust opposition. Japan’s largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, last week formed a new centrist party with the LDP’s former coalition partner, the Komeito party.
The new party, the Centrist Reform Alliance, will challenge the LDP in the upcoming elections.
