Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has decided to dissolve parliament as early as Friday, with an election possibly next month, media said yesterday, in a move likely to unseat him from power.
Noda will call an election for as early as Dec. 16 or as late as Jan. 20, according to major news media, including the Nikkei Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun.
After months of speculation over the date of the next national ballot, the issue came to the fore on Monday afternoon, with Noda seen pushing a plan to join a vast trans-Pacific free-trade deal as one of his core campaign pledges.
That would distinguish his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from the main opposition party, which is largely against the pact.
“Prime minister decides to dissolve parliament this year,” the front-page headline of the influential Nikkei business daily said yesterday. “The groundwork toward parliamentary dissolution is moving forward.”
The Mainichi Shimbun said the prime minister could dissolve the lower house on Friday and hold an election on Dec. 9.
Noda declined to discuss when he would call an election when pressed during a parliamentary session.
Political operatives have already shifted to high gear with new smaller parties emerging to tip the traditional balance of power.
Controversial former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara took over an existing conservative party and renamed it “Taiyo no to” — the Party of the Sun, a name that recalls his award-winning 1955 novel Season of the Sun.
Media-savvy Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has also spent time in the national spotlight again of late, with his “Nippon Ishin no kai” or Japan Restoration Party gaining some traction since its inception in September.
Main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader Shinzo Abe, who served as prime minister for a year to September 2007, is attempting a comeback with a renewed nationalistic agenda.
Polls must be held by next summer when the four-year term of the current parliament expires.
Noda is widely expected to have an uphill battle to get his DPJ re-elected in the face of widespread voter disillusionment with its record in the three years since it ousted the long-ruling LDP.
In the latest Asahi poll released yesterday, the Cabinet’s approval rating slid to a mere 18 percent, while the disapproval rating rose to a whopping 64 percent.
An election defeat would mean Noda, who took office in September last year, would become the sixth Japanese leader to leave the prime minister’s residence after spending roughly a year in office.
His predecessors in the current parliament, Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan, both resigned amid low approval ratings and power struggles within the DPJ.
With a short election cycle and fickle public opinion, Japan has changed leaders almost annually since Junichiro Koizumi, who led the nation for more than five years to September 2006.
The regular changes at the top have led to hand-wringing over Japan’s diminishing influence on the world stage, as well as its declining economic status after it was overtaken by China as the world’s second-largest economy.
Noda’s decision on the exact timing of an election will be determined in part by how the US reacts to overtures about Japan’s participation in the Washington-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Nikkei said.
The TPP is seen as a key plank in US President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia and a counterweight to the growing clout of China. It presently groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in