Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reportedly hates the summer.
“It’s a state secret,” Koichi Hagiuda, a senior figure in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), joked last week — adding that she particularly hates summer elections.
That is understandable, given the incessant public addresses they demand, in a country where summers are oppressively humid, stiflingly hot and longer than ever. That is why she might be trying to beat the heat by dissolving parliament this month and calling a snap election in the early weeks of February, as a flurry of media reports said she intends to.
The timing makes sense, and not just for the temperature. After three months in office, her polling numbers remain off the charts.
A Japan News Network survey this weekend showed her enjoying 78 percent approval. She passed her extra budget last month, filled with handouts for households battling inflation, and has enacted a publicly popular cut to gasoline taxes. And just when some of the chief concerns around her position were her inexperience and the hint of radicalism she carries, Beijing’s campaign against her, for comments on the potential for Japan to be dragged into a theoretical Chinese invasion of Taiwan, makes her look positively reasonable and stateswomanlike.
However, to enact meaningful change, she needs to turn her popularity into a long-lasting administration, of the kind overseen by her mentor, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The prospect of that has jolted what was a relatively sleepy start to the year in Japanese markets. The Takaichi Trade has been resurgent, with the Nikkei 225 rising to yet another record, bonds continuing their sell off and the weakening yen once again flirting with touching 160 to the US dollar. Investors are betting on the prospect that a stronger position would enable Takaichi’s free-spending instincts.
A win could restore the LDP’s majority in the lower house, lost in 2024 under former Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba. That would lessen the need to cooperate with stubborn opposition parties and secure her position within the LDP itself. Many lawmakers lost their posts under Ishiba, and gaining their support — as well as proving herself as an election winner — is the best way to ward off internal rivals and keep hold of the top office.
Her support among younger voters, increasingly influential as ever-more political discussion takes place online, is almost unheard of. They have recently taken to “Sana-katsu,” or buying items that Takaichi herself favors, such as her handbag or preferred brand of pen.
Among the under-30s, she enjoys an unprecedented 92 percent approval rating, according to a Fuji News Network poll last month. The contrast with the main opposition party, whose leader Yoshihiko Noda once likened himself to a bottom-feeding fish, could not be more stark: Even with the LDP in crisis last year, his party failed to pick up a single seat in the July upper house election.
Yet it is not a slam dunk. Takaichi is popular, but the idea of an election is not: Most surveyed said they see little need for another just more than a year since the last vote. The prime minister has not crafted a wedge issue on which to justify calling one. And in contrast to Takaichi herself, the LDP brand itself is still damaged goods. It all risks being seen as self-serving — at a time voters would prefer to hold her to her promise to “work, work, work, work, work” on issues such as inflation.
However, the greater risk might be doing nothing. Between the domestic schedule and international engagements, there are only a handful of windows during which she can realistically call an election. Leave it too late, and her popularity would inevitably start to take a hit as familiarity breeds contempt. Remember the lesson of former Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga, who enjoyed Takaichi-like polling numbers when he replaced Abe in 2020. He passed up the chance to capitalize on those, and another window did not open up as his crashing popularity forced him out of power.
Takaichi might hate the heat, but her political honeymoon would not last forever, either.
Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia, and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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