Abacus | Is Japan’s long slump finally ending?
Its economy long mired in obstacles, the nation may soon gather steam yet again, and it all fits a bust-boom cycle first cited in the 1930s
It is likely Abe would have called the election even earlier to take advantage of the complete disarray of the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan, which has long been the only significant opposition to Abe’s ruling Liberal Democrats. But the prime minister’s opinion poll rating took a bad knock over the summer from a cronyism scandal.
With the effects of the scandal now fading, and Abe’s rating recovering, he is in a rush to hold a vote before the new right-of-centre Party of Hope, backed by popular Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, can make major inroads into the LDP’s national support base – just as Koike’s local party did in July’s Tokyo prefectural election.
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Even so it is likely Abe will lose the two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament he needs to make the changes he wants in Japan’s pacifist constitution. Nevertheless, a simple majority will be enough to ensure four more years of the expansionary “Abenomics” policies he hopes will at last lift Japan’s economy out of its decades-long slump.