apanese Cabinet ministers said yesterday the time was not right for high-risk snap elections, with reports saying Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso would hold off until next year amid the global financial turmoil.
The opposition, which has been rising in the polls, has demanded that Aso dissolve the lower house of parliament for elections as soon as next month and threatened to stall bills in parliament if he does not.
But Japanese media, quoting unnamed political sources, said Aso has opted not to call an election for now and to focus on stimulus measures and fighting the global slowdown which is seen pushing Japan into recession.
Cabinet ministers welcomed the receding prospects of snap polls.
“I don’t think that people feel it’s the time for elections with stocks and the economy plunging,” Education Minister Ryu Shionoya told reporters.
Aso reportedly told a meeting of lawmakers late on Monday that Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, should avoid a leadership vacuum just as the US, the biggest, is in transition between presidents.
“Major economic powers should be ganging up to stem the string of worries,” said Akira Amari, the minister in charge of administrative reforms.
“I believe the decision to give top priority to people’s lives rather than to political affairs is right,” Amari told reporters.
Seiko Noda, the Cabinet minister in charge of consumer affairs, said that the financial turmoil was “engulfing the world” and “all countries are saying this is a once-in-a-century event.”
“Can Japan, as a member of the world, dissolve [the lower house for elections] ... and say nobody is in charge here?” she said to reporters.
Aso was expected to state his intentions publicly tomorrow after meeting his coalition partner.
A survey published in the Asahi Shimbun yesterday found 57 percent of respondents saw no need to hold elections soon, against 33 percent who wanted early polls.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei stock index this week plunged to its lowest level since 1982, before the collapse of the bubble economy, as a soaring yen saps profits from Japanese exporters.
The banking sector, however, has been relatively unscathed compared with Western counterparts pummeled by risky subprime housing loans.
“Japan has been left relatively unscathed by the crisis and should take the initiative to resolve it,” Aso said at Monday’s meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
Aso took over on Sept. 24 with a mission to steer the party into elections, which must take place by September next year. But his early poll ratings have underwhelmed as the economy falters and the LDP reels from scandals.
The LDP has been in power for all but 10 months since 1955. But the party has been through four prime ministers since 2006 as it struggles to find a popular leader.
Also See: Asian markets pull back losses as yen takes a fall
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