Japan's beleaguered Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will not resign no matter how badly his coalition fares in Sunday's elections, his administration vowed yesterday.
The remarks came despite opinion polls showing the conservative prime minister's approval ratings have plummeted to around 30 percent after a series of scandals and gaffes involving top aides.
Abe's woes and the lack of a clear successor have raised speculation that Japan could be heading back to an era of instability seen in the 1990s, when new prime ministers took office almost every year.
Chief government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki stressed that Sunday's vote was for only the upper house of parliament -- not the lower house, which appoints the prime minister and where the ruling coalition enjoys a strong majority.
referendum
"Elections for the upper house are not seen as occasions to choose an administration. This election will be no exception," Shiozaki told a news conference.
But upper house elections, which take place every three years, are often seen as a referendum on the ruling party. In 1998, prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto resigned after defeat in an upper house election.
Shiozaki brushed aside the historic precedent, saying: "Those were decisions of the administrations of the time."
In a sign of a coordinated strategy, Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), held his own news conference and said Abe's job was not at stake.
"This election is not directly linked to selecting the prime minister, so I think Mr. Abe will continue as prime minister," Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa told a news conference.
Nakagawa acknowledged that the situation was "very severe" for the LDP, but said Abe's strategy was to stick with his reform agenda.
"The core focus of the election is to pursue reforms triggered by [former prime minister Junichiro] Koizumi and activate reform under Abe's leadership," Nakagawa said. "This election will show how the public judges our reforms so far."
But other ruling party members have already hinted they would no longer back Abe if the LDP-led coalition loses the upper house.
"If there's a deadlock, then that ultimately would lead to a change in government," Yoshimi Watanabe, the minister in charge of administrative reform, said late on Monday, as quoted by public broadcaster NHK.
Harumi Arima, a political analyst and former secretary to a lawmaker, predicted that some LDP members would turn on Abe if the party fared badly in the election.
"Close aides to Abe such as Shoichi Nakagawa keep saying that the election results have nothing to do with the Abe administration, but lower house members have already begun worrying," Arima said.
punishment
"If Abe doesn't take responsibility and doesn't resign, then voters will probably punish the LDP in the next lower house elections," he said.
Abe took office in September as the chosen successor of Koizumi, a maverick reformist who was one of modern Japan's longest-serving premiers.
Abe initially used the strong majority he inherited from Koizumi to push his conservative ideas close to his heart, including requiring schools to teach "patriotism," a taboo since World War II.
But Abe has taken a beating in polls and changed the focus of his election campaign after a government agency admitted it bungled millions of pensions payments -- a sensitive issue in the rapidly graying country.
"Opinion polls at this point show a severe situation for us, but I believe our policies have received the public's approval, not criticism," Nakagawa said.
"The low approval ratings come from other problems," he said, in apparent reference to the scandals that have dogged Abe's Cabinet.
Two of Abe's ministers have quit and another committed suicide under the cloud of scandal.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS