Populist governor won’t run in election

Japanese political leaders focused on the economy as campaigning for this month’s snap election began Tuesday, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urging voters to give him more time to work on the recovery while his rival Yuriko Koike vowed to scrap a planned consumption tax increase.

But the Oct. 22 election is shaping to be much less of a competition than many had hoped — or feared — with Koike, the populist governor of Tokyo, deciding against running for parliament, effec- tively taking herself out of the race to become prime minister.

Koike, who was o nce defense minister in Abe’s government, started a new political party, Party of Hope, last month specifically to compete against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, although there are very few policy differences between them.

“It’s a politician’s job to give people hope and dreams. We will restore people’s trust in politics,” Koike told potential voters outside a Tokyo train station Tuesday. She urged voters to help her party bring about an end to “Abe-dominant politics.”

E ven as camp a igning began Tuesday, some analysts thought that Koike would still throw her hat in the ring as a candidate for parliament before the 5 p.m. deadline.

But she did not, instead urging voters to back her party even without her. Her hastily-formed the Party of Hope, which incorporates some lawmakers from the flailing opposition Democratic Party, now appears leaderless, without an obvious candidate for prime minister.