Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday said she will dissolve the parliament this week ahead of snap elections in February, a move to gain a mandate from voters for her economic goals. Photo by Kiyoshi Ota/Pool/EPA
Jan. 19 (UPI) — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday called for a snap election three months after being elected to office in pursuit of a mandate to fuel what she said is major changes to policy there.
Takaichi said she plans to dissolve the lower house country’s parliament, the Diet, on Friday ahead of a snap election on Feb. 8 aimed at gaining a mandate from voters and a majority in the 465-seat House of Representatives, The Guardian and the Financial Times reported.
The prime minister also announced that she plans to suspend sales tax on food there for two years, reduce the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio and strengthen social security, among other moves to stimulate the country’s economy.
“I am putting my future as prime minister on the line,” Takaichi told reporters at a press conference. “I want the people to decide directly whether they can entrust the management of the country to me.”
Japan’s first female prime minister had been considering dissolving the parliament for at least a couple of weeks as her advisors urged her to take advantage of high approval ratings to gain a majority for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The conservative, nationalist LDP has held rule in the parliament for decades, but has under-performed in recent elections and relied on a coalition with the populist Japan Innovation Party to hold a thin majority.
Of the lower house’s 465 seats, the LDP-JIP coalition has 233.
Since Takaichi became prime minister last October, she has pursued aggressive spending to revitalize the Japanese economy, including by abolishing the provisional gasoline tax rate and increasing the nontaxable income there.
