TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi intends to dissolve the lower house for a snap election soon after the annual parliamentary session begins next week, the secretary-general of her ruling party and the co-head of her junior coalition partner said on Wednesday (Jan 14).
“I was notified by Prime Minister Takaichi that she will dissolve” the lower house “at an early stage of the ordinary parliamentary session”, Hirofumi Yoshimura, one of the leaders of the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), told reporters.
Yoshimura added that he was told by Takaichi that she plans to hold a news conference on Monday to explain more about her decision.
Takaichi was appointed Japan’s first woman prime minister in October, and her Cabinet is enjoying an approval rating of around 70 per cent.
But her ruling bloc only has a slim majority in the powerful lower house of parliament, hindering its ability to push through her ambitious policy agenda.
On Wednesday, she also conveyed her intention to dissolve the chamber to Shunichi Suzuki, secretary-general of her ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Suzuki told reporters in Tokyo that the election would, in part, be about seeking a public mandate on the current LDP-JIP partnership, which materialised only recently after the ruling party’s former partner exited the coalition.
The junior Komeito party ended its 26-year relationship with the LDP last year, citing the LDP’s failure to tighten party funding rules following a damaging slush fund scandal.
It was also unnerved by Takaichi’s previous harsh rhetoric on China and her regular visits to a Tokyo shrine that honours Japan’s war dead, including war criminals.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/japan-pm-sanae-takaichi-set-call-february-snap-election-ldp-5857736
