Japanese PM Shinzo Abe calls snap election next month

Her announcement put an end to weeks of speculation about the outcome of negotiations between Masaru Wakasa, an independent lower house lawmaker and ally to Ms Koike, and defectors from other parties, including Goshi Hosono, a former environment minister who recently left the Democratic Party.

Support for Abe’s party has since rebounded, somewhat helped by his Cabinet reshuffle last month and fading scandals during the parliament’s recess.

“Elections, which are the foundation of democracy, must not be affected by North Korea’s threats”, he said.

Q: What are Abe’s prospects of winning the election, and then extending his leadership next year?

Abe called a snap election on Monday as regional tensions remained at fever pitch over North Korea, coupled with Koike’s declaration that she would head a new conservative grouping to be called the Hope Party.

While the main parliamentary opposition Democratic Party is splintering, Abe faces a wild card challenge from a new national party being set up by an associate of Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike.

The Yomiuri Shimbun/The Japan NewsPrime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday announced he will dissolve the House of Representatives at the beginning of the extraordinary Diet session to be convened Thursday.

“Voters are highly sensitive to what is going on in North Korea and very anxious about these developments and I think that is pushing them to support Abe”, Professor Kingston said.

This time, Abe said he wanted to use about 2 trillion yen ($17.8 billion) in additional revenues to pay for early education and day-care programs.

Should he secure a fourth term in office, Abe’s agenda would push forward a raise in sales taxes to 10% from 8%, the revenue from which would be directed into child care and education spending rather than working to pay off the country’s debt. More than 42% said they were undecided.

The prime minister had been expected to face a grilling over the cronyism scandals during a session of parliament from Thursday and opposition party officials saw the move as a ploy to avoid hard questions.

A 24-year-old graduate student in Sapporo said he was twice awakened by the J-Alert nationwide warning system when North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the southern part of Hokkaido.

Koike, an Arabic-speaking former news anchor who was also briefly the country’s first-ever female defense minister, became the mayor of Tokyo past year.

“I think this will be a general election to cover up his ill doings, to move people’s attention away from the scandals”, said one voter, 33-year-old call-centre employee Mayumi Chikagawa.