Election campaign underway in Japan

More than 1,000 candidates will run for 465 seats in the lower house

TOKYO - Tokyo's popular governor Yuriko Koike launched a bitter attack on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday as the gloves came off for the official start of a snap election campaign in the world's third-largest economy.

Conservative Prime Minister Abe, 63, is facing an unexpected and fierce challenge from the media-savvy Koike, who has upended the sleepy world of Japanese politics with her upstart "Party of Hope".

Addressing hundreds of commuters at a busy Tokyo station via loudspeaker, Koike called on supporters to "end the politics of Abe", lashing out at the long-serving prime minister over recent scandals that have weighed on his popularity.

"The political status quo has continued while politics itself has lost the public's confidence," charged the former TV anchorwoman, 65.

More than 1,000 candidates were expected to run for 465 seats in the all-powerful lower house.

The 12-day campaign will be fought around reviving Japan's once world-beating economy and the threat of Pyongyang, which has threatened to "sink" the country into the sea.

Koike's "Party of Hope" has swallowed up and replaced most of the main opposition party in the space of a week, transforming Japan's staid political landscape.

But surveys suggest her bandwagon is grinding to a halt as she refuses to run herself for PM in the election, focusing on running the world's most populous city with three years until Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games.

Referendum on Abe

A poll in the top-selling Yomiuri daily suggested that 32 percent of voters plan to vote for Abe's conservative LDP with 13 percent for the Party of Hope - down 6 percentage points from the previous poll in September last year.

Abe is seeking a fresh term at the helm of the Asian economic powerhouse and key US regional ally and unexpectedly called a snap election to capitalize on a weak and fractured opposition.

But Koike stole his limelight by launching her party, attacking Abe's government for being too slow to reform the country, weighed down by an aging population, deflation and a huge debt mountain.

Abe returned to power in December 2012 and has pushed a nationalist social agenda as well as his trademark "Abenomics" economic policy, promising to kick deflation and achieve two-percent inflation with stable growth in two years.

But nearly five years later, he has failed to deliver on those pledges.

Critics argue that Abe called the early election to divert attention from a string of scandals, including allegations of favoritism to a friend in a business deal - which the premier strongly denies.

Analysts say the Oct 22 election is effectively a referendum on Abe, who has enjoyed unrivaled political strength for the past five years in part because of a lack of credible opposition, while his key policies remained controversial or unpopular.

Koike says her new group promotes "compassionate conservatism" and hopes to distinguish herself from Abe by pledging a phaseout of nuclear power by 2030 and a freeze on a planned sales tax hike.

The outcome could create two rival conservative blocs with broadly similar diplomatic and defense policies, with fragmented left-wing forces filling the gap, pundits say.

Abe's ruling bloc currently holds a two-thirds majority, with his long-ruling LDP holding 287 seats while its junior partner Komeito has 35.

AFP - Xinhua - AP

(China Daily 10/11/2017 page11)