Abe will decide on snap election after US trip

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he will decide on calling a snap election after he returns from a trip to the United States, confirming media reports that he was considering calling a vote more than a year early.

“I’ll refrain from answering each and every question about a dissolution of Parliament, but I’d like to decide when I return to Japan,” Mr Abe told reporters at Haneda airport before boarding a plane to New York, in comments broadcast by NHK.

He is scheduled to attend meetings at the United Nations before returning to Japan on Friday.

Mr Abe intends to dissolve Parliament on Sept 28 to pave the way for an election on Oct 22, Yomiuri newspaper reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information. Sankei newspaper reported on Sunday that the date of the vote is probably Oct 29.

Calling an election before one is due at the end of next year would allow Mr Abe to seize on opposition disarray and growing support for his handling of the North Korea crisis. His approval ratings have recovered following a series of scandals, with an NHK poll last week showing that approval for his ruling coalition exceeded disapproval for the first time in three months.

North Korea’s recent spate of missile tests has unnerved Japanese voters, and more than two-thirds of respondents to the NHK poll approve of Mr Abe’s strong line on the isolated nation. The main opposition Democratic Party appears to be unravelling with the resignation of several members since a new leader was voted in earlier this month.

“The Democratic Party is in terrible shape, so there is no opposition to Abe,” Mr Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo, said by email. “Crises such as that on the Korean Peninsula are generally good for incumbents. You can look like you’re in charge.”

A poll this month showed Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had 37.7 per cent of support, up from 30.7 per cent in July. Support for the Democratic Party was 6.7 per cent, and no other national opposition political party had a higher rating, highlighting the weakness of the existing opposition Mr Abe faces.

Mr Seiji Maehara, head of the Democratic Party, said that an election at a time when North Korea is threatening Japan risks creating a political vacuum and that Mr Abe was seeking to escape questioning in Parliament surrounding scandals. Some members of Mr Abe’s party are also sceptical. One senior official, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private, said a snap election may be a gamble because the ruling coalition could lose its two-thirds majority.

“There is also a real chance that a snap election would lead to his undoing,” said Dr Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “Calling a premature election more than a year ahead of the end of the term is purely on the basis of self-interested political calculation.”

A snap election may speed up the formation of a new national political party linked to Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to face Mr Abe’s LDP.

Mr Abe suffered a heavy defeat in an election for the local Tokyo assembly in July at the hands of a new party formed by Ms Koike. This was blamed on cronyism scandals that tarnished Mr Abe’s image. Ms Koike’s Tomin First (Tokyo Residents First) party has yet to create a strong national base.

Mr Abe’s consideration of a snap election may in part be influenced by discussion of a new national party associated with Ms Koike, according to NHK. Mr Dujarric said that Ms Koike would not have time to prepare a challenge to Mr Abe. BLOOMBERG