Japan’s Abe headed for snap election win
December 14, 2014, 3:48 am

In early December, Abe, left, debated economic policies with Banri Kaieda, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, an opposition bloc in the Diet’s lower house of parliament [Xinhua]

Millions of eligible voters will be choosing from among 1,191 candidates running for the 475 seats in the lower house of the Diet (also known as the House of Representatives in Japan’s parliament; the upper house is known as the House of Councillors).

A win for Abe, 60, will be seen by the ruling coalition as a mandate for his economic policies.

Political analysts say that Abe’s problems began in earnest last April when he pushed through the first of a series of raised value-added (sales) taxes.

The raising of taxes to 8 per cent in April was designed to boost income and stimulate the market (starting with weakening the yen currency to encourage exports) in the wake of dismal economic prospects at the end of 2013.

But the purposeful devaluation of the Japanese Yen had an almost adverse effect. The export market rose only by 0.5 per cent, while imports jumped up by 3.4 per cent, mainly due to a slow growth in other Asian markets.

Economists say some of the deficit is due to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster which forced the country to turn from nuclear power to more expensive fossil-fuel alternatives; some 90 per cent of Japan’s energy supplies come from imports.

Elected in 2012, Abe moved quickly to pull Japan out of the glut created by the global financial crisis.

But by 2013, Japan slipped back into recession.

A win for Abe today will reinvigorate tha policy popularly called “Abenomics” – government spending, monetary stimulus, and structural reforms.

But opposition leaders say the concept of Abenomics is running Japan into the ground and souring its relations abroad.

Banri Kaieda, head of the Democratic Party of Japan, the major opposition party in the Diet, said: “Are you going to support another four years of Mr. Abe’s politics?”

The Democratic Party of Japan lost to Abe’s Liberal Democrats in 2012. Kaieda has said the snap elections were a ruse by the Prime Minister to save his government before his popularity ratings slipped further. They currently hover just under 50 per cent approval.

“He is trying to receive a blank check (to run the government) for the next four years, taking advantage of some leftover hopes for his economic policies,” Kaieda said earlier.

But for Kenji Eda, a senior member of the opposition Japan’s Innovation Party, it is the country’s nuclear power plants that are a concern. Eda fears that an Abe win could give the ruling coalition in the Diet the impetus to “prematurely” restart the nuclear plants which have been shut down since the Fukushima disaster.

Source: Agencies