N. Korea crisis spurs Japan’s Abe in election
Prime minister looks to win in a landslide, a big shift for Cabinet plagued by scandal
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has pushed for a stronger military, appears poised to win a landslide victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, in large measure because of heightened fears in recent months about North Korea.
If the polls are correct, the results would be a remarkable turnaround for the prime minister, who in recent months faced sinking popularity due to a corruption scandal in his Cabinet and seemed vulnerable to the rise of a charismatic political opponent, the current governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike.
A survey released Monday by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper showed Abe’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) likely to win as many as 303 of the 465 seats in the lower house of parliament, while its coalition partner, the Komeito, is expected to take more than 30 seats.
Those figures would allow Abe to push forward an agenda that could include changing Japan’s pacifist constitution to allow for a more robust military.
North Korea helped set the stage for Abe’s political rebound. The isolated country launched a pair of ballistic missiles over Japan in August and September, which brought some support back to the hawkish Abe. He has talked tough against North Korea and pushed for a strong national defense.
On Sept. 28, two weeks after North Korea fired its second missile over Japan, Abe dissolved parliament and called for a snap election. Under Japan’s parliamentary system, an election was not required until 2018, but Abe saw a chance to strike while his poll numbers were on the rise and his opposition remained weak and in disarray.
“We must not give in to the threat of North Korea,” he said during his announcement. “I hope to gain the confidence of the people in the upcoming election and push forward strong diplomacy.”
He continued to press the issue during the campaign, which lasts only 12 days. At a rally on Sunday, Abe said: “This is an election to question how we can protect our people’s lives and good living from North Korea’s threats.”
“The North Korean missile launches have rescued Abe,” said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo. “He had sunk from 60% to 26% (popularity) in early August and looked like he was on the ropes, dogged by allegations of cronyism and public perceptions of high-handedness.”
On the streets of Tokyo, supporters pointed to Abe’s strong stance and experience dealing with North Korea, as well as his rapport with the United States, Japan’s most important ally.
“I’m concerned about North Korea,” said Yamada Kouji, 65. “I trust Abe and the LDP. But we can’t deal with the threat alone. I think that Donald Trump is a bit too wild and unpredictable, but Abe is trying to have a good relationship with him.”
Abe golfed with President Trump during his February visit to the White House and has been a consistently supportive ally.
Abe, who has been prime minister nearly five years, has sought to reduce the restrictions on Japan’s Self Defense Forces, a military constrained by the constitution that was imposed by the U.S. after World War II.
The prime minister and his supporters want to revise the constitution to allow Japan to maintain a more traditional military. Earlier this year, the prime minister set a deadline of 2020 for making the change, which remains controversial at home and is strongly opposed by both China and South Korea.
While the LDP seems in line to win big, many voters are less enthusiastic about Abe himself. The taint of scandal still surrounds him, and many of his policies remain divisive. The Mainichi poll showed 47% of voters oppose Abe remaining as prime minister, while only 37% support him.
That ambivalence has left a large numbers of voters still undecided just days ahead of the election. A Kyodo News Agency poll found more than 54% of respondents still hadn’t made up their minds.
Arioka Kazumi, an office worker in Tokyo who is still undecided, said she feels the threat of North Korea but is uncertain if Abe has the right temperament to handle it.
“If Abe gets too much power he’ll go his own way, and that worries me,” she said.
One reason for the LDP’s projected success is voters don’t see many viable alternatives. Japan’s traditional opposition party, the centrist Democratic Party, dissolved last month, with most members joining Tokyo governor Koike’s new Party of Hope.
Koike, a media-savvy former defense minister, shares many of Abe’s conservative positions, leaving little ideological difference between the two main political parties.
In 2014, voter turnout for parliamentary elections was only 52%, and a similar low number is likely this time.
“The opposition votes will be split, and some people will be abstaining because they don’t know what is at stake in this election,” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.
“There is a real malaise in the Japanese political system, and I think that’s a serious problem.”
“The North Korean missile launches have rescued Abe. ... In early August, (he) looked like he was on the ropes.”
Jeff Kingston, Temple University, Tokyo