Japanese voters are not used to tough elections.
But with national elections to be held on Sunday, the party that has ruled Japan for all but four years since 1955 faces the possibility of losing its majority in the lower house, the House of Representatives.
Barely a month after Shigeru Ishiba was named the new prime minister in a leadership vote by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, the party is facing considerable pressure from citizens angry over a long-simmering political funding scandal, rising inflation and the burden of rising prices. He then went to the election. family.
That does not necessarily mean that Japanese voters are ready to hand over government to the divided and weakened opposition party that won the last general election 15 years ago. Analysts said the incumbent party was likely to win enough seats to retain power in parliament or be forced to field a new coalition partner to stay in power.
“The most interesting thing about this election is the uncertainty,” said Masaru Kono, a political scientist at Waseda University in Tokyo.
Unlike other countries, where voters are divided over ideology and vastly different policy platforms, Japanese voters find none of the options attractive and are frustrated by a sense of complacency from the ruling party.
On the eve of the election, Ishiba stopped by a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidates near Tokyo Dome. He acknowledged the instability within the party and appealed to undecided voters in a crowd of about 500 gathered at the edge of the playground.
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