Tokyo
\nJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would dissolve Parliament\u2019s Lower House on Thursday for a snap election, seeking a mandate to stick to his tough stance towards a volatile North Korea and rebalance the social security system.<\/p>\n
Abe, in power for five years, had been expected to call the election for next month to take advantage of improved support and disarray in the opposition camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll demonstrate strong leadership and stand at the forefront to face a national crisis,\u201d Abe told reporters, mentioning Japan’s fast-ageing population and North Korea. \u201cThis is my responsibility as leader and my mission as prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n
Natsuo Yamaguchi, the head of Abe’s junior coalition partner the Komeito party, said he understood the election would be on October 22.<\/p>\n
Abe said he would redirect some revenue from a planned sales tax hike in 2019 to child care and education rather than paying back public debt. Rebalancing the spending would offset the potential negative effect on consumption from the tax rise, he said.<\/p>\n
Abe rejected criticism that holding an election now would create a political vacuum at a time of rising tension over North Korea\u2019s missile and nuclear arms programme. Pyongyang has fired ballistic missiles over Japan twice in the last month and conducted its sixth and biggest nuclear test on September 3. \u201cWe must not give in to North Korea’s threats. By gaining a mandate from the people with this election, I will forge ahead with strong diplomacy,” Abe said, adding that now was the time to put more pressure on Pyongyang, not open dialogue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tokyo Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would dissolve Parliament\u2019s Lower House on Thursday for a snap election, seeking a mandate to stick to his tough stance towards a volatile North Korea and rebalance the social security system. Abe, in power for five years, had been expected to call the election for next month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6025,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6023\/revisions\/6025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}