TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba dissolved parliament on Wednesday ahead of October 27 snap elections, banking on his honeymoon popularity and a fragmented opposition to lead his scandal-tainted party to victory.
Ishiba´s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has governed Japan almost uninterrupted for decades -- albeit with frequent leader changes -- and is almost certain to be re-elected.
But Ishiba, named prime minister just last week, wants to shore up his mandate to push through policies that include beefing up spending on defence as well as on poorer regions hit by Japan´s demographic crisis.
“We want to face this election fairly and sincerely, so as for this government to obtain (public) trust,” Ishiba told reporters on Wednesday.
Later the speaker of parliament read out a letter from the prime minister with the emperor´s seal, formally dissolving parliament as lawmakers shouted the traditional rallying cry of “banzai”.
The three-year government of Ishiba´s predecessor Fumio Kishida suffered record-low approval ratings due to a slush fund scandal and voter discontent over rising prices.
Barricades set up at a military checkpoint on the Tongil bridge, the road leading to North Korea’s Kaesong city, in...
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted by former US president Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House...
A view of the sign for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ahead of the announcement...
A flag is seen on a building during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland February 27,...
A man walks through a flooded alley at a residential colony, after water rose from the river Yamuna due to heavy...
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama embrace each other before posing for a...