Abe aims to please in snap election

TOKYO: Pledges to spend on education and child care, stay tough on North Korea and revise the pacifist constitution are likely to be pillars of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign in a snap election next month, government sources said yesterday.

Mr Abe is considering calling the lower house poll when the legislature convenes on Sept 28 to take advantage of his improved ratings and disarray in the opposition, ruling party and government sources have said.

The prime minister, whose ratings have recovered from below 30% in July, is betting his ruling bloc can at a minimum retain a simple majority in the chamber and at best keep the two-thirds super-majority needed to achieve his long-held goal of revising the constitution to clarify the military’s role.

Mr Abe wants to go ahead with a planned rise in the nation’s sales tax to 10% from 8% and use some of the revenue to create a “social security system for all generations”, which would invest in education while decreasing the proportion of sales tax revenue used to pay down government debt, the sources said.

Japan’s social welfare system is weighted toward spending on the elderly, with people aged 65 and over accounting for a whopping 27.7% of the population according to the latest government data.

“You can promise anything you want — make a nod toward a more equitable society, empowering women, work-life balance, welfare for all generations,” said Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan.

“He’s got a strategy that is going to win.” Using less tax revenue to pay down debt, however, would make it more difficult to achieve the government’s target of returning to a primary budget surplus in fiscal 2020, which could in turn raise concerns about less rigid fiscal discipline.

“We have to maintain fiscal discipline, regardless,” Finance Minister Taro Aso said.

Mr Abe has said he will make a decision on the snap election after he returns from the United States on Friday.

Japan’s opposition Democratic Party is struggling with single-digit support and a succession of defections. And while the nascent “Japan First” party could be a viable challenger to Mr Abe’s government, it has yet to draft a platform, pick candidates or formally register as a party.