Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he’s not thinking of dissolving parliament during the current session, cooling speculation he could call an early election as soon as next month.
“I am not thinking of dissolving the current session of the lower house of parliament,” Kishida told reporters Thursday. Dissolving parliament would be a procedural step needed for calling an election.
Kishida said he wanted to focus on the challenges ahead. Opposition members are expected to submit a no-confidence motion on Friday against Kishida’s government, which will likely be easily defeated given the large majority of seats held by the coalition led by the premier’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
But such a motion could be used by Kishida to call for a snap election. Given the relatively weak support for opposition parties, Kishida’s ruling LDP would likely remain in power if there was a vote, as it has been almost continuously since 1955. It could, however, lose some seats to an upstart opposition party.
While he need not hold a vote until 2025, calling an early vote would have left the opposition with less time to prepare for a campaign that could eat into the ruling coalition’s majority. Renewing his mandate would also help Kishida retain his position as party leader in an LDP vote next year.
“He’s likely judged overall that holding an election now would not be advantageous,” said political analysts Shigenobu Tamura. “He’ll look for another time for a dissolution including the possibility of autumn.”
The premier has been widely expected to hold the election by the end of the year, before the government reveals how it will fund plans to hike defense spending pledges and policies to counter the falling birthrate. Polls show a majority of the public is unwilling to countenance tax hikes, as inflation continues to hurt household budgets.
An election could come in the autumn, following a cabinet reshuffle and changes in some top LDP leadership positions, Jiji Press reported, citing political sources it did not name.
Support for Kishida’s cabinet has slipped in three recent media surveys. A poll by public broadcaster NHK conducted June 9-11 found a fall of 3 percentage points to 43%, while surveys by Asahi TV and Jiji Press also indicated approval had sagged in the past month.
With stocks hovering around three-decade highs and the economy growing faster than initially thought in the first quarter, Kishida has some factors in his favor. On the downside, he has failed to bring about the pay hikes he promised, with real wages falling for a 13th straight month in April as food and fuel prices surge.
He’s also facing unease over mess-ups in the introduction of a national ID card.
Tamura said trouble over the ID card, the fall in poll ratings and scandals involving his son and a close aide likely contributed to Kishida’s thinking.
Kishida’s comments also come amid a rift between the LDP and its Buddhist-backed coalition partner Komeito amid a redrawing of constituency lines to reflect the ongoing drift of the population from his party’s rural strongholds to urban areas.
--With assistance from Yuko Takeo and Takashi Hirokawa.
(Updates with report on election timing in eighth paragraph.)
