Japaense PM Abe calls early election

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is cornered by the plummeting economic growth rate, declared on Tuesday that he would dissolve parliament and call a snap election. After an expert meeting examining economic conditions and an interim leadership meeting of his Liberal Democratic Party, he held a press conference in the afternoon, saying, “We’ve decided to put off a consumption tax hike scheduled in October next year because of weak economic conditions.” He added, “I dissolve the Lower House to ask for the people’s opinion on the decision.”

The “economic shock,” which led to a decline in real GDP for two consecutive quarters including the third quarter, dealt a critical blow to dissolving parliament. Abe will dissolve parliament officially on Wednesday and hold a snap election for the Lower House on Dec. 14.

Japanese politicians immediately started to prepare for the early election. The main opposition Democratic Party and minority Your Party held an emergency meeting on Tuesday and started to select candidates to compete with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Opposition parties plan to attack the ruling party, saying, “Abe-nomics is a failure that worsened the conditions of low-income households and small and medium-size companies much harder.”

As Abe’s Cabinet has over 40 percent of approval rating and opposition parties have less than 10 percent, the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito Party is expected to win comfortably. However, along with Japan`s resumption of nuclear plant operations and its diplomatic conflicts with Korea and China, Japanese voters could be affected by the growing criticism saying that it is not the time to spend taxpayers’ money in the general election but to develop measures to revitalize the economy.