October 21, 2017

It came out of nowhere, alarmed many supporters and appeared for a while to be the biggest political mistake since Theresa May’s dissolution of parliament four months earlier. But tomorrow Shinzo Abe looks certain to secure an overwhelming victory in an election that has reshaped Japanese politics.

Barring an upset, Mr Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its small coalition partner are on course to win a decisive majority in elections to the lower house of the Diet. It may even achieve once again the two-thirds “super-majority” that would enable it to call a referendum on changes to the constitution. The scale and seeming ease of the prime minister’s likely victory are deceptive. After five years in power Mr Abe remains a divisive, and in some ways unpopular, leader whose election success has at least as much to do with the chronic failures of the opposition as with his own mixed achievements.

Japan is expected to be struck by a typhoon over the weekend, bringing heavy rain that may deter undecided voters, who make up as much as 40 per cent of the electorate, from going to the polls. A survey in the Nikkei newspaper indicates that this will help the LDP and Komeito party coalition to win close to the 290 out of 475 seats they held before Mr Abe’s decision to call a snap election.

Read more:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/japan-to-re-elect-its-unpopular-leader-shinzo-abe-3q7z0ct62