Parties accelerate preparations for Lower House election

September 26, 2017

TOKYO- Japanese political parties speeded up Tuesday their preparations for a snap election of the House of Representatives after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced on the previous day that he will dissolve the all-important lower chamber of parliament.

The Lower House will be dissolved at the beginning of an extraordinary parliamentary session on Thursday for the snap election to be held on Oct. 22. The official campaign period will start on Oct. 10.

"I decided on the dissolution for the sake of overcoming our national crisis," Abe, also president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told a meeting of the party's executives on Tuesday morning.

He said: "The fight has already begun. Let's fight through as one."

"We have to come up with our election pledges quickly or we won't make it on time," Abe said, instructing the party executives to accelerate efforts to work out details of the campaign promises.

The LDP pledges are expected to include a revision to the existing agreement on how the increased revenue from the planned consumption tax hike from 8 pct to 10 pct in October 2019 should be used.

The party is also likely to pledge to have the constitution's war renouncing Article 9 stipulate the existence of the Self-Defense Forces.

LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Fumio Kishida instructed officials of the council to submit a list of key policy agendas.

Based on the list, the party is expected to draw up draft campaign pledges later this week. After completing intra-party procedures, the pledges will likely be announced on Monday.

Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of Komeito, the junior coalition partner of the LDP, put up the sign of the party's campaign task force for the Lower House election at Komeito's headquarters on Tuesday morning.

After that, Yamaguchi told a press conference, "We'll be on the offensive."

Meanwhile, the main opposition Democratic Party held a meeting of its election headquarters, where the party's president, Seiji Maehara, said the DP should make united efforts to drive Abe's administration out of power.

The focus will be on whether the opposition camp, including the Japanese Communist Party, will unify candidates for single-seat constituencies, as they did in the election last year for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber.

The DP is also hoping to explore ways to avoid having the candidates of its own fight against those of a new political party to be set up by popular Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. But Koike's side is negative about cooperating with the DP. Jiji Press