Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calls snap election
JAPAN - Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, has called a snap election to take advantage of opposition disarray and support for his hard line against North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program.
Speaking at a televised press conference yesterday, Abe said the election would be an appraisal of his spending plans ahead of a tax hike and his handling of the crisis on the Korean peninsula. He added that he would resign as prime minister if his party failed to win a majority. The 22 October election was announced hours after Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, announced the formation of a new party that could give conservative voters an alternative to Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP). Koike, a former LDP defence minister, said her newly formed Kibo no To (Party of Hope) would be free of special interests. “I’m launching a new party and I want to be directly involved in it,” Koike told reporters. The party has already attracted MPs from other opposition parties. Mineyuki Fukuda, a junior cabinet minister, said over the weekend he would become the first LDP defector to join Koike. The vote for the powerful lower house of parliament will be more than a year earlier than expected but comes amid increasing tension in the region. North Korea has test-fired two ballistic missiles over northern Japan in the past month, triggering emergency drills and warnings from Abe that the country faces an “unprecedented threat” from the regime.
Abe, who has been in office for almost five years, announced new spending on early education and childcare as part of a 2 trillion yen stimulus package to be implemented over three years from next April. He said he would continue to put pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile development. “If North Korea follows the right path, it can develop its economy. But if it doesn’t abandon its missile and nuclear program, then it will not have a bright future,” he said.
At home, Abe is expected to persevere with a longheld desire to reform Japan’s postwar constitution to allow the country’s military a more active role overseas. According to a weekend poll by the Nikkei business newspaper, 44% of voters would back the LDP in a general election.
(The guardian.com)