Japan’s Thatcher is making a huge election gamble |
Japan will go to the polls in February for a general election after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called a snap poll today. Takaichi is looking to make the most of her extraordinarily high approval ratings – in what has proved quite a lengthy honeymoon period – to secure a more comfortable mandate for her ambitious policy platform. It is a bold move by Japan’s first female prime minister and not without risk.
Her Liberal Democratic party (LDP), the closest thing Japan has to the UK Conservatives and long seen as the natural party of government, has a slim majority in the lower house thanks to the support of three independent lawmakers but lacks a majority in the upper chamber. This means that at present Takaichi can pass finance bills without the support of opposition parties but her room for manoeuvre is restricted and her position remains precarious.
Takaichi is gambling on her personal appeal – she has recorded approval rates as high as 78 per cent
Takaichi is gambling on her personal appeal – she has recorded approval rates as high as 78 per cent, something not seen since the days of the maverick Junichiro Koizumi back in the early 2000s. Will that be enough to override the public’s dwindling interest in her venerable but tainted party? The LDP has suffered a........