Japan goes to polls in snap election

International Desk: Voting has begun for millions of Japanese citizens to cast their ballots in a snap election which is expected to return Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to power with a comfortable majority.

The polls opened at 7:00am local time (22:00 GMT Saturday) on Sunday (Oct 22) and will close at 8:00pm. Official results are expected on Sunday night, reports the straitstimes.com.

Close to 1,200 candidates are vying for 465 seats in Japan’s more powerful Lower House.

The election is taking place amid heavy rain nationwide, and voter turnout could be affected as Typhoon Lan makes landfall in the southern parts of the country.

Abe, who called the election 14 months ahead of schedule, has said a snap election was necessary to get the mandate of voters on his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s plans to stave off what he refers to as ‘national crises’ of the North Korea and demographic threats.

Yet the poll comes at a delicate time for the LDP, which has endured a bruising year of scandals. Earlier this year, Mr Abe was himself implicated in two cronyism scandals, while his protege Tomomi Inada resigned as defence minister over a major cover-up scandal.

Abe’s disapproval ratings still outstrip his support ratings in a slew of media polls, with a survey by NHK last week pegging approval at 39 per cent and disapproval at 42 per cent. Another, by the Nikkei newspaper, has support at 37 per cent and disapproval at 48 per cent.

Even so, media surveys have suggested that it is unlikely that Mr Abe will suffer the same fate as his British counterpart Theresa May whose snap election gambit in June backfired and rendered her with a weaker hand in parliament.

The surveys show that the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito will score a huge victory as an opposition challenge mounted by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike fizzled out not long after she launched the Kibo no To (Party of Hope) last month (Sept).

What is uncertain, however, is whether the ruling bloc will retain its two-third ‘super majority’ in the lower chamber of Parliament that is required to push forward Constitutional amendment. To do so, it will need to win at least 310 seats. In the last Lower House, the coalition held 324 seats, or 68.2 per cent of the chamber.

Media surveys expect the coalition to win anywhere between 290 and 320 seats.

In a tight race for the second place - and the title of being the main opposition in Parliament - are Ms Koike’s Party of Hope and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP).

Both parties have taken in members of what was formerly the main opposition party, the Democratic Party (DP). In power from 2009 to 2012, the DP has in recent years been plagued by very public spats.

The Kibo no To, led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, has positioned itself as the ‘centrist reformist’ alternative to the LDP although both parties are ideologically cut from the same cloth.

Ms Koike herself was a LDP member for over a decade, but defied the party to run for governorship last year. She quit the party to lead the local Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First) in July to a resounding win in the local Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election.

The Party of Hope, which is fielding 235 candidates, has entered a loose alliance with the Osaka- based Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party).

It started out strong, but hype surrounding the party quickly fizzled out after Koike refused to throw her hat into the ring, leaving the party with no clear candidate for the prime minister role.

Party insiders say Koike’s vow to ‘eliminate’ the left-leaning members of the DP from her party has hurt its chances and tainted its image among the eyes of voters. She had earlier struck a deal with DP chief Seiji Maehara to absorb all its members.

Political blue blood Shinjiro Koizumi, son of former premier Junichiro Koizumi and a rising star with the LDP, has said that Ms Koike was caught in a bind of ‘double irresponsibility’ - she would be letting down Tokyo voters if she were to quit as governor just a year after taking office; she would be irresponsible to Party of Hope if she does not run as a candidate under its banner.

With both the LDP and Kibo no To leaning right, Japan’s newest political party - the CDP - is quickly gaining ground among the left-leaning voters.

Public broadcaster NHK pegs CDP’s support at 6.6 per cent - higher than Party of Hope’s 5.4 per cent. A Sankei newspaper survey has also predicted that the CDP would get between 46 and 60 seats, up from an initial estimate of 30 seats.

Despite being less than three weeks old, the CDP is already Japan’s most popular political party on Twitter, with 185,025 followers.

The LDP has 130,000 followers, while Kibo no To has a paltry 12,900.

The CDP , led by former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, is fielding 78 candidates.

Edano has won a back-handed compliment from the most unlikely of supporters - former Tokyo governorShintaro Ishihara. Mr Ishihara, an ultra-nationalist, praised him for ‘remaining true to what he believes in’. ‘He looks to me like a real man,’ Mr Ishihara said, unlike the ‘many candidates who ran away and became turncoats’.

University of Tokyo political watcher Yu Uchiyama said the breaking up of DP and the fragmented opposition has given the LDP additional momentum. And with more than three in 10 voters undecided days before the poll, undecided voters may hold considerable sway - if they show up to vote.

‘There is so much ambiguity. Until as recently as last week, many of these floating voters were expected to vote for Kibo no To, but now their expectations towards Kibo no To is shrinking while the CDP is gaining momentum,’ he said.

‘There will be some voters who will not make up their minds based on policies, but rather choose the freshest voices because they don’t like the establishment.’

Source: agencies



risingbd/Dhaka/Oct 22, 2017/Nasim