TOKYO (AFP) – Candidates in Japan’s super-tight election made last-ditch appeals to voters yesterday, with opinion polls suggesting the ruling coalition might fall short of a majority.
Such a bombshell outcome in today’s vote would be the worst result for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2009, and potentially a knockout blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Ishiba – a fan of trains, 1970s pop idols and making model ships and planes – only last month took the helm of the LDP, which has governed Japan for almost all of the past seven decades.
After a tough internal contest, the 67-year-old former defence minister became premier on October 1. Days later, he called the snap parliamentary elections, promising a “new Japan”.
Ishiba pledged to revitalise depressed rural regions and to address the “quiet emergency” of Japan’s falling population through family-friendly policies such as flexible working hours.
But he has since rowed back his position on issues including allowing married couples to take separate surnames.
He also named only two women ministers in his Cabinet.
Rising prices have rankled voters, and also dogging Ishiba is the fallout from a party slush fund scandal that helped sink his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
A poll on Friday by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily suggested that the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito might struggle to get the 233 Lower House seats needed for a majority.
Ishiba has set this threshold as his objective, and missing it would undermine his position in the LDP and mean finding other coalition partners or leading a minority government.
