Koike’s new party challenges Abe

‘Hope’ floating populist slogans

TOKYO, Sept 27, (Agencies): A new political party led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is floating populist slogans such as ending nuclear power and freezing a sales tax hike ahead of a general election next month, but voters may find few other big policy gaps with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Koike’s Party of Hope, formally launched on Wednesday with a slick promotion video and news conference, could attract voters who feel Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has become complacent, even arrogant, after nearly five years in office.

The new party adds more uncertainty to the election.

Abe’s LDP-led coalition is unlikely to lose its grip on power, but a weak showing would erode Abe’s clout, make policy initiatives harder and jeopardise his hopes of becoming Japan’s longest-serving premier.

“There’s not much daylight between Koike’s party and the LDP,” said Gerry Curtis, professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York. “It’s a question of who can impress the voters as more competent. It’s competence and it’s character.”

The Party of Hope shares policy space with both the conservative, business-friendly LDP and the right wing of the main opposition Democratic Party, an often fractious mix of conservatives and liberals.

The Democrats are struggling with defections to the new party and singledigit ratings.

Media reports said Koike and the Democrats’ leader were discussing a merger or tie-up, though the outlook was murky – and some political analysts suggest Koike might opt to ally with the LDP instead after the election, given their policy similarities.

Abe, promising strong leadership to cope with Japan’s fast-ageing population and a rising threat from North Korea, is betting the LDP and its junior coalition partner can keep their majority in parliament’s lower house, where they hold a two-thirds “super majority”. He will dissolve the lower house on Thursday for a vote expected on Oct. 22.

The 63-year-old premier returned to power in December 2012 for a rare second term, promising to bolster Japan’s defence and reboot its deflationplagued economy with hyper-easy monetary policy, spending and reforms. He has made revising the postwar, pacifist constitution a key plank in his long-term agenda.

Koike, 65, served as defence minister in Abe’s first 2006-07 cabinet, but she defied the LDP to run successfully for Tokyo governor last year and, in July, her novice local party handed the LDP an historic defeat in a Tokyo assembly poll.

The media-savvy former TV announcer – often floated as a candidate to become Japan’s first female premier – is looking to repeat that success nationally. She said on Wednesday, though, that she wouldn’t run for parliament this time.

A vague Party of Hope platform unveiled on Wednesday pledged to be a “tolerant, conservative reform party,” break free of vested interests, protect the public, spend tax money wisely and respect diversity.

Koike has, however, distanced herself from the LDP on two issues that could resonate with voters.

She has suggested freezing a rise in the sales tax to 10 percent from 8 percent, from 2019, and called for an end to nuclear power – without saying how or by when.

TOKYO:

Also:

Japan’s western hub of Osaka has threatened to cut its sister city ties with San Francisco over a memorial to wartime sex slaves.

Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura announced the plan at a press conference Monday, saying he would end relations should San Francisco integrate land containing the statue into a public park.

The memorial was built last week on a privately owned plot next to a municipal park by a group of Chinese Americans

Yingluck sentenced in absentia:

Thailand’s top court on Wednesday sentenced ousted premier Yingluck Shinawatra in absentia to five years in prison for criminal negligence, a verdict that likely ends the political career of a popular leader who fled the junta-run kingdom last month.

Yingluck’s administration was toppled in a 2014 coup and she was later put on trial for failing to stop corruption and losses in her government’s rice subsidy scheme, which the court said cost the country billions of dollars.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi (third left), attends a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (second right), at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing on Sept 27. (AFP)

and their supporters, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Japanese media has reported that San Francisco intends to extend the boundaries of the park because the owner of the plot wants to give it to the city.

“If San Francisco were to accept the donation, it will mean the city has expressed its wish to accept it in a public space,” Yoshimura told reporters.

“It would be the same as the city erecting it. Therefore, I will terminate our sister city relations,” he said.

TOKYO:

A Japanese court Wednesday fined a tattoo artist for tattooing customers without a medical licence, the first case of its kind in a country where body art is associated with gangsters.

Police raided the studio of 29-yearold Taiki Masuda in 2015, charging him with violating a law requiring anyone who carries out a medical procedure to have a formal qualification.

He received a court order to pay fines but requested a trial instead, hoping to prove that tattooing was art and not a medical practice, according to the Asahi Shimbun daily.

At his trial, presiding judge Takaaki Nagase said it was “reasonable” to require tattooists to hold a medical licence to prevent health risks, local media reported.

TOKYO:

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 struck off northeastern Japan on Wednesday. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, and no risk of tsunami.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake struck at 5:22 a.m. (20:22 GMT) off the Pacific coast of Iwate and Aomori prefectures at a depth of about 30 kms (20 miles). The US Geological Survey measured the magnitude at 5.9.

It shook the same region hit by a deadly earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The shaking was felt in Tokyo, 570 kilometers (350 miles) southwest of the epicenter.