Japan heads to polls with Abe on course to retain power
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Voters began casting vote on Sunday for a general election with the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopeful to retain power.
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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has billed as a referendum on his economic policies after the initial success of his first two years faded as the country slumped into recession.
The premier is seeking public blessing for "Abenomics" - his signature plan to fix the country's flaccid economy - with observers expecting an underwhelming and underprepared opposition will be routed. Opinion polls predict his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner Komeito will sweep the ballot, probably with an unassailable two-thirds majority, giving them the power to override the upper house. "I have been pushing for Abenomics, the policies designed to create jobs and raise salaries," Abe told hundreds of voters in Tokyo's neon-lit Akihabara electronics district on the eve of the election. "Japan can be much richer," Abe said, sporting a knee-length white windbreaker emblazoned with his campaign slogan: "This is the only way". Sixty-year-old Abe was only halfway through his four-year term when he called the vote last month. The first two of his "three arrows" of Abenomics - monetary easing and fiscal stimulus - have largely hit their targets; the once-painfully high yen has plunged, sending stocks higher. And prices have begun rising after years of standing still - proof, says Abe, that this is the beginning of a virtuous circle of economic growth, with higher wages soon to follow. However, a precipitous sales tax rise in April snuffed out consumer spending, sending Japan into the two negative quarters of growth that make a recession. Critics say Abe has not been bold enough to take on the vested interests that are the real key to reversing nearly two decades of economic underperformance. A four-year mandate from the electorate may embolden the prime minister's hand and see off opposition from within a vast and ill-disciplined LDP, too often given to bouts of regicide. But heavy snow across swathes of Japan on Sunday looked set to further dampen enthusiasm among already-uninspired voters, raising fears of a record low turnout. "I have no expectations from politics," Kanji Takahashi, a 72-year-old fish market worker, said after casting a ballot at a Tokyo polling station. | |
Save Dissent to Save Democracy THE rising instances of physical violence and threats against political opponents and the inability to accept dissent must raise huge concerns amongst all of us who see democracy as perhaps the really stellar achievement since Independence. AAP’s attack on BJP headquarters and acts of arson committed under the very noses of their elite leadership; the attacks on Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in Gujarat in the last two days; the recent manhandling of the caretaker of journalist Siddharth Varadarajan’s house by some garden variety thugs; and the violence and threats meted out regularly to their political opponents by political parties is surely deplorable and condemnable. This is a fatally flawed trend which will destroy the very foundations of our democratic institutions if not pushed back with all the strength and condemnation that the civil society can mobilise. Replaying the past To begin with, it must be clarified that we should ...
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