Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba yesterday dissolved parliament ahead of snap elections on Oct. 27, banking on his honeymoon popularity and a fragmented opposition to lead his party to victory.
Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has governed Japan almost uninterrupted for decades — albeit with frequent leader changes — and is almost certain to be re-elected.
However, Ishiba, named prime minister just last week, wants to shore up his mandate to push through policies that include beefing up spending on defense as well as on poorer regions hit by Japan’s demographic crisis.
Photo: Reuters
“We want to face this election fairly and sincerely, so as for this government to obtain [public] trust,” Ishiba told reporters.
Later, the speaker of parliament read out a letter from the prime minister with the emperor’s seal, formally dissolving parliament as lawmakers shouted the traditional rallying cry of “banzai.”
The three-year government of Ishiba’s predecessor, Fumio Kishida, suffered record-low approval ratings due to a slush fund scandal and voter discontent over rising prices.
Polls last week gave Ishiba’s Cabinet approval ratings of 45 to 50 percent, compared with 20 to 30 percent for the Kishida administration’s final month.
Ishiba’s backers hope the self-confessed defense “geek” and outspoken critic of the LDP establishment would boost the party’s popularity, including by persuading disillusioned young people to vote.
By dissolving parliament now, the 67-year-old wants to put his party to the test before his “honeymoon” period ends, said Yu Uchiyama, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo.
“It makes sense that he wanted to call a snap election as soon as the ‘face’ of the party changed, while the momentum is still there,” he said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most