Japan’s ruling party faced the prospect of political gridlock yesterday as bad losses in weekend parliamentary elections undermine its attempts to reduce the second-largest economy’s ballooning budget deficit and revive growth.
Half of the 242 seats in the upper house of parliament were up for grabs on Sunday. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won only 44 seats, while opposition parties made major gains.
That leaves the Democrats and their tiny coalition partner with 110 seats in the chamber, well below their majority of 122 before the vote. The conservative Liberal Democratic Party won 51 seats, bringing its total to 84.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s party will retain power because it still controls the more powerful lower house. But the results are a dramatic contrast to the Democrats’ landslide victory just a year ago, when they seized control of parliament.
The Democrats didn’t appear to be reaching out to other parties yesterday to join their coalition — and none showed an interest in coming on board. Failure to regain a majority would make it difficult to move ahead on their agenda, which includes cutting wasteful spending, making government more open and creating a solid social security system as the population rapidly ages and shrinks.
In office just a month, Kan warned that Japan’s finances could face a Greece-like meltdown if it doesn’t cut back on soaring debt — twice the country’s GDP — and suggested raising the sales tax as a solution. Voters, already suffering from the economic downturn, rejected that idea.
“The sudden announcement increased voter distrust toward Kan. No one is sure what he is going to come out with, and the feeling is that he may suddenly renege on past promises,” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.
Kan acknowledged defeat early yesterday morning, saying he failed to fully explain his proposal to raise the sales tax from 5 percent to as much as 10 percent in coming years.
While many voters say a tax hike may be inevitable, they want a more detailed discussion first.
“If we look at the deficit, it’s reasonable to raise taxes to 10 percent, because we really have to revitalize the economy,” said Sadako Fukano, 71, a housewife in Tokyo. “However, the prime minister’s explanation as to where he’s going to spend the tax money wasn’t enough.”
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