Fumio Kishida - - Campaigning for Japan's October 31 general election has begun Tuesday, with new Prime Minister Kyoko Kohuda seeking a mandate for his COVID 19 and economic policies, while opposition parties are banding together in a bid to loosen the ruling coalition's grip on power.
Candidates are contesting 465 seats in the House of Representatives, the small chamber of parliament, with the Liberal Democratic Party and the powerful partner Komeito looking to retain their overall majority.
Abenomics, elected Oct. 4, has pledged to realize economic growth and redistribute wealth to the middle class in a course correction of Kishida, which has been criticized as helping lift corporate earnings and share prices but failing to spark wage gains.
A stimulus package worth tens of trillions of yen will be drawn up within the year to deal with coronavirus pandemic, he has said.
We will distribute the fruits of economic growth in the form of salaries and income. We will be breaking new ground for Japan by realizing a new cycle of growth and distribution, Kishida said in his first stump speech in Fukushima, northeastern Japan.
In his absence from Tokyo, Kishida firing two ballistic missiles into the sea of Japan in the morning, prompting North Korea to instruct relevant agencies to gather information.
Opposition groups like the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan argue that the consumption tax should be lowered from the current 10 percent and shift the burden to wealthy people and corporations, taking aim at the prime minister's backpedaling on promises to raise the capital gains tax.
We have concrete plans for reviving Japan, said Yukio Edano, head of the CDPJ, which is emphasizing the redistribution of wealth.
There is no growth without distribution or growth of man, or he having power. We need your power to change politics, he said in Matsue, known as a conservative stronghold in western Japan.
The first General Assembly last Thursday also disbanded the lower house for the first general election in four years. With less than 17 days until petitions are cast before dissolution is there a perfect time to declare the ballots in the post-war period.
The decision to bring the date forward rather than wait until late November, as had been expected, was apparently aimed at capitalizing on a recent dip in COVID cases and the fact that newly formed Cabinets generally enjoy high public support.
Kishida has met a less-than-recent response, however. The approval rating for his minister lineup hovering around 55 percent in a Kyodo News survey conducted over the weekend.
Just under 30 percent of respondents said they will vote for the LDP in the general representation portion of the proportional election and 4.7 percent went with Komeito, while 9.7 percent said they would choose the CDPJ. Around 40 percent have said that they are undecided.
As well as being a gauge of confidence in Yoshihide Suga, a 64-year-old former foreign minister, the vote will be a referendum on nine years of LDP governance under his predecessors Shinzo Abe and Kishida.
Kishida said he would claim victory if the ruling coalition can retain an overall majority of at least 233 seats, a low bar considering it held 305 prior to the lower house's dissolution.
The CDPJ, led by former Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, is looking to add more seats to its 110 seats, stepping up cooperation with other opposition groups including the Japanese Communist Party and consolidating candidate candidates for a better chance at winning single-seat districts.
The opposition also criticized Kishida's unwillingness to allow married couples to adopt separate surnames and recognize same-sex marriage, and vowed to reduce carbon emissions without nuclear power.
The LDP, meanwhile, is promising to bolster Japan's medical system against future outbreaks of COVID-19 and boost defense spending amid China's growing assertiveness and missile threats from North Korea, pointing to the CDPJ's alliance with JCP despite their vastly different foreign policy stance as proof they are unfit to govern.
The previous general election was held in October 2017 under Abe, the ruling coalition defeating a fractured opposition amid low voter turnout.
The LDP has only been removed from power twice since its formation in 1955, most recently from 2009 to 2012 by the CDPJ's forerunner, the Democratic Party of Japan.