Japan's House of Representatives will be dissolved on the 23rd. The general election will be held on the 8th of next month. There are 16 days from the dissolution to election day, the shortest since the end of World War II. Prime Minister Takaichi said the election goal is for the Liberal Democratic Party and the coalition partner Japan Innovation Party to secure a majority of seats, adding that she would "stake the prime minister's post" on the outcome.
Prime Minister Takaichi said at a news conference at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on the 19th that she will dissolve the lower house on the first day of the regular Diet session convening on the 23rd. The last general election in Japan was held in Oct. 2024. This election will be held after 1 year and 3 months. Members of the lower house serve four-year terms, but when the prime minister dissolves the chamber, a new election is held.
After Takaichi was elected party president in early Oct. last year, the Liberal Democratic Party broke with the centrist conservative Komeito, which it had partnered with since 1999, and brought the hardline conservative Japan Innovation Party in as a new coalition partner.
Takaichi cited as a reason for dissolving the lower house early that the policies set when the coalition with the Japan Innovation Party was formed in Oct. last year were not presented as Liberal Democratic Party pledges in the immediately preceding general election.
Takaichi said the goal in this election is for the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party to secure a majority of seats. Since the launch of the Takaichi Cabinet, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party have been pushing conservative policies such as boosting national defense capabilities and revising the Constitution.
Komeito, the third-largest opposition party, has decided to form a new party, the "Centrist Reform Coalition," with the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party ahead of the election. The two existing parties will not be dissolved, and only members of the lower house will leave their parties to join the new party. It is effectively an election alliance aimed at a change of government.
Japan's lower house has 465 seats, of which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party holds 199, the Constitutional Democratic Party holds 148, the Japan Innovation Party holds 41, and Komeito holds 32. The Constitutional Democratic Party and Komeito together would have 172 seats.