{"id":413809,"date":"2026-02-08T01:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413809\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T01:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:25:07","slug":"japan-votes-in-snap-election-as-pm-sanae-takaichi-takes-a-gamble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413809\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan votes in snap election as PM Sanae Takaichi takes a gamble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sociologist Yuiko Fujita from Tokyo University sets this enthusiasm against the backdrop of how Japanese politics has traditionally been dominated by older men.<\/p>\n

“The fact that the prime minister is now a woman, someone with a different background from what people are accustomed to, creates a feeling that something is shifting,” she told Nikkei Asia.<\/p>\n

However, some are not convinced her popularity will translate into votes. <\/p>\n

“This is not a presidential election but a parliamentary election, in which the LDP’s candidates are mostly men tainted by past scandals,” political science professor Koichi Nakano, from Sophia University, told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Since 2023, the LDP had been mired in a fundraising scandal, which led to the resignation of four cabinet ministers<\/a> and a corruption investigation.<\/p>\n

The snap election is a gamble for Takaichi as her party now faces a more unified opposition. The LDP’s former longtime coalition partner Komeito has joined forces with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan to form the largest opposition bloc in the Lower House.<\/p>\n

Another major hurdle the LDP faces is how to convince voters that its spending-heavy measures will not exacerbate Japan’s financial fragility. <\/p>\n

The government’s policy package may offer households short-term relief, but “fails to address the underlying problems of weak productivity and stagnant real wages”, Masahiko Takeda, a senior fellow focusing on Asia at the Australian National University, wrote in an article this week.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Takaichi has dug herself into “a deep hole in foreign and security policy by antagonising China”, said Nakano.<\/p>\n

Takaichi angered Beijing, Tokyo’s largest trading partner, late last year with her suggestion that Japan could respond with its own self-defence force if China attacked Taiwan. <\/p>\n

The rift <\/a>has plunged the historically tense relationship to its lowest point in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile she has pursued closer ties with US President Donald Trump as Tokyo seeks more stability in its relationship with Washington, its closest ally.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Trump endorsed Takaichi in a rare move for a US leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sociologist Yuiko Fujita from Tokyo University sets this enthusiasm against the backdrop of how Japanese politics has traditionally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-413809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}