Abe Flirts With Early Election Ahead of Japan Sales Tax Increase
The longer Abe puts off the poll, the more he risks a backlash from voters who have grown weary of his leadership.
(Bloomberg) -- Less than two years after winning a landslide election, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s party is considering an early vote before the economy takes a hit from a planned sales tax hike in October.
Abe, who will become the country’s longest-serving prime minister in November, won some breathing space to decide on dissolving the lower house when President Donald Trump on Monday said a contentious trade deal could wait until after Japan holds upper house elections in July. The current lower house term is until or before October 2021.
Abe’s top lieutenants in his ruling Liberal Democratic Party have hinted at that possibility of what is billed as a “double election,” with Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai saying last week the scent of such a vote was in the air. This week the LDP’s election strategy chief Akira Amari tried to dismiss the speculation without ruling it out, telling Nippon TV channel BS Nippon there was a 99% likelihood that it won’t happen.
Retaining the ruling coalition’s majority in both bodies for at least three more years would help it survive a planned increase in the unpopular sales tax from 8% to 10% that is aimed at helping Japan ease the developed world’s biggest debt load. The government has done it twice since it was introduced in 1989, and both times saw an economic slide that led to political revolts.
The political calendar has lined up favorably for Abe, and for moving up the lower house vote. Support surged for his government in May to its highest level in about two years after the country’s first imperial abdication and accession in two centuries -- a highly watched event fanning national pride. A poll carried out by the Nikkei newspaper this month found 55% of respondents supported Abe’s cabinet, up 7 percentage points on the previous survey in late March.
The LDP, which has controlled the government for all but four years since 1955, is a well-oiled machine in preparing candidates for elections. It takes a splintered opposition longer to prepare for the polls and decide on unified candidates in constituencies where it can chip into the LDP-led coalition’s two-to-one lead in the more powerful lower house.
“The reason he might have one is that he likes to fool the opposition and get them when they are not prepared,” said Steven Reed, emeritus professor of political science at Chuo University, adding that he thinks Abe will call for the lower house election after Tokyo hosts the 2020 Summer Olympics. “Strategically, Abe does things that don’t fit the normal patterns, and that has proven quite successful for him.”
Imperial Bump
Abe, a conservative, is set to host the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in June. That will mark a chance to brandish his global leadership credentials after the Trump visit, which has been high in ceremony that included a meeting with the new emperor.
Abe got a boost when Trump backed his role in facilitating talks with Iran, which has a long and friendly relationship with Tokyo, after the Japanese leader reportedly offered his services as an intermediary amid mounting tensions in the Middle East. His role as a power player in Asia will be boosted this week in meetings with regional leaders coming to Japan for the Future of Asia Conference.
The prime minister is seen more as a reliable steward facing few credible challengers. But the longer Abe puts off the poll, the more he risks a backlash from voters who have grown weary of his leadership.
Political Pawns
Asked whether they felt any actual benefit from his signature policy program dubbed “Abenomics,” 87% of respondents said they didn’t, according to a poll this month from TV news network JNN. The policy of unprecedented monetary easing and government spending is aimed at tackling deflation.
Abe’s long-held plan to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution to give the military more muscle is supported by a little more than a quarter of the public, a poll in May by the Mainichi newspaper showed.
His third consecutive term as LDP leader doesn’t end until September 2021, and polling shows the public doesn’t want him to stay for a fourth. Another term would require a change in LDP rules and the party has made a change before to allow Abe to stay on. The public’s pick, however, is Shinjiro Koizumi, the 38-year-old son of popular former premier and the most prominent member of the LDP’s new guard.
Naoki Kazama, an opposition lawmaker with the Constitutional Democratic Party, said it may be convenient for Abe to have a vote before the sales tax hike, which he sees as a political play aimed at keeping Abe in power.
“There is a strong impression that voters are being used as pawns,” Kazama said. “It’s a barren ploy.”
--With assistance from Emi Nobuhiro, Isabel Reynolds and Takashi Hirokawa.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jon Herskovitz in Tokyo at jherskovitz@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten Kate, Chris Kay
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