Japan’s governing party lost a parliamentary seat and retained another in weekend by-elections seen as a major test of its support ahead of a national vote on Sunday.
Both seats are in the upper house of Japan’s Diet, which is not subject to Sunday’s elections for the more powerful lower chamber, but they were seen as a bellwether for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government.
His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had previously held both seats. It lost to an opposition-backed candidate in a tightly contested vote for a vacant seat in Shizuoka Prefecture, while the LDP candidate won the other seat in the party’s traditional stronghold of Yamaguchi Prefecture, home to former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Even though polls widely expect the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito to keep a majority of the 465 seats in the lower house, losing ground from the 305 it held before the election would be a bad start for Kishida’s weeks-old administration.
“We had a disappointing result in Shizuoka,” Kishida told reporters yesterday. “I will seriously take the judgement of the voters and will seriously work hard for [Sunday’s] elections.”
In the vote for the seat representing Shizuoka Prefecture south of Tokyo, former prefectural assembly member Shinnosuke Yamazaki, supported by opposition groups the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Democratic Party for the People, beat LDP-backed Yohei Wakabayashi, a former mayor, and a third candidate backed by the Japanese Communist Party.
Jun Azumi, senior lawmaker of the Constitutional Democratic Party, said the victory in Shizuoka gives the opposition bloc “big confidence” ahead of Sunday’s elections.
“The result reflected discontent of many voters, who want to change politics after seeing their lives continue to deteriorate during the [COVID-19] pandemic,” Azumi said.
In Yamaguchi Prefecture, LDP-backed Tsuneo Kitamura beat a Japanese Communist Party candidate and a former YouTuber.
Kishida took office on Oct. 4 with the immediate task of rallying support for a government weakened by a perceived high-handed approach to the pandemic and an insistence on holding the Tokyo Olympic Games.
He dissolved the lower house only 10 days after taking office, saying he wanted a mandate from the public for his new government.
Major issues in the lower house campaign include COVID-19 response measures and revitalizing the pandemic-battered economy, as well as diplomatic and security issues linked to China’s growing strength and influence, and North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.
The campaign already has been rocky for the LDP, with polls showing support for Kishida’s weeks-old government sliding.
Kishida said he aims for the coalition to secure at least a majority of seats, or 233, in the chamber. That would be an easy target, but experts and polls predict that the LDP could lose about 30 seats.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the