Opinion polls recommend that Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled virtually continuous for many years, will simply win greater than the 233 seats wanted to regain a majority within the highly effective 465-member decrease home.
Heavy snowfall blanketed many elements of the nation on election day, together with Tokyo and different areas that not often see winter snow.
“I think it’s important to come, so that we can properly take part in politics as well,” a 50-year-old lady, who solely disclosed her surname as Kondo, instructed AFP close to a voting station in Tokyo.
“Even if it snows more than it does now, I still plan to go,” she added.
“I struggled to find a way to the ballot box as snow was accumulating around it, and it was a pain to arrive here with bad road conditions,” a person in his 70s in Aomori in northern Japan instructed public broadcaster NHK.
“I wish the election was held in a snowless season,” he mentioned. It is the primary time in a long time that Japan holds a normal election in snowy February.
Pollsters even recommend — with some warning as a result of undecided voters and wintry climate — that the LDP and its coalition companion might safe 310 seats wanted for a useful two-thirds majority.
This could be the perfect end result for the LDP since 2017 when Takaichi’s mentor, the late ex-premier Shinzo Abe, achieved an analogous end result.
Takaichi was a heavy metallic drummer in her youth, an admirer of Britain’s “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, and on the ultra-conservative fringe of the LDP when she grew to become chief in October.
She has defied pessimists to be successful with voters, particularly younger ones, with followers lapping up every thing from her purse to her jamming to a Ok-pop music with South Korea’s president.
Pandas and public debt
Takaichi has nevertheless not had every thing her personal manner, specifically with regard to worries about her stewardship of the general public funds of Asia’s number-two economic system.
She adopted up a $135-billion stimulus bundle aimed toward easing the ache of inflation — a giant reason behind voter discontent — with a marketing campaign promise to droop a consumption tax on meals.
Japan’s money owed are greater than twice the scale of your complete economic system, and in current weeks yields on long-dated bonds have hit file highs whereas the yen has seesawed.
Takaichi “always talks about taking responsibility through expansionary fiscal policy, and I dont know whether that will actually lead us in a better direction,” Chika Sakamoto, 50, instructed AFP as she visited a voting station in Tokyo.
“Still, I wanted to see what would happen if they pursued aggressive fiscal spending,” hoping that it could ease impression of rising costs on family revenue, she mentioned.
Barely two weeks in workplace, Takaichi — seen earlier than assuming the premiership as a China hawk — prompt that Japan might intervene militarily if Beijing sought to take self-ruled Taiwan by power.
China regards the democratic island as a part of its territory and has not dominated out power to annex it.
With Takaichi having days earlier pulled out all of the stops to welcome US President Donald Trump, Beijing’s response to her unscripted remarks was livid.
It summoned Tokyo’s ambassador, warned its residents in opposition to visiting Japan and carried out joint air drills with Russia. Last month, Japan’s final two pandas have been even returned to China.
Trump has not publicly weighed in on the spat however final week endorsed Takaichi as a “strong, powerful, and wise Leader, and one that truly loves her Country”.
Margarita Estevez-Abe, affiliate professor of political science at Syracuse University, mentioned that the China episode raised Takaichi’s recognition much more.
“Now she doesn’t have to worry about any elections until 2028, when the next upper house elections will take place,” Estevez-Abe instructed AFP.
“So the best scenario for Japan is that Takaichi kind of takes a deep breath and focuses on amending the relationship with China.”
Voting stations have been as a result of shut at 8:00 pm (1100 GMT) with media predictions primarily based on partial outcomes anticipated quickly afterwards.
Originally printed on France24