Campaigning begins for Japan's Oct. 31 general election

Campaigning for Japan's Oct. 31 general election began Tuesday, with new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida seeking a mandate for his COVID-19 and economic policies while opposition parties are banding together in a bid to loosen the ruling coalition's grip on power. Kishida, who took office on Oct. 4, has pledged to realize economic growth and redistribute wealth to the middle class in a course correction of "Abenomics," which has been criticized as helping lift corporate earnings and share prices but failing to spark wage gains. A stimulus package worth "tens of trillions of yen" to deal with the coronavirus pandemic will be drawn up within the year, he has said. As well as being a gauge of confidence in Kishida, a 64-year-old former foreign minister, the vote will be a referendum on nearly nine years of LDP governance under his predecessors Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga.

• Product Code
• ILEA000806551

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• 2021/10/19 00:00:00

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