TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio is set to dissolve the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, Thursday.

Following the dissolution of the Lower House on the final day of the ongoing extraordinary session of the Diet, a general election will take place in Japan for the first time since October 2017 and since the start of the novel coronavirus crisis last year.

Most attention will be paid to whether the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, can together maintain a majority of Lower House seats.

Key issues in the election, to be held Oct. 31, will include measures against the pandemic and steps to resuscitate the economy. The official campaign period is slated to start next Tuesday.

Both the ruling and opposition parties are getting into election mode in earnest, with the end on Wednesday of three-day parliamentary question-and-answer sessions over Kishida’s first policy speech as prime minister at the Diet, delivered last Friday.

The general election was initially expected to take place in November. Kishida told a plenary meeting of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, that he moved up the schedule to take bold antivirus and economic measures as soon as possible after seeking a popular mandate.

Yukio Edano, leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said the issue in the election is “whether to choose wavering Kishida or unwavering Edano,” stressing that the party aims to take power from the ruling bloc.

Kishida, who took office Oct. 4, said at his inaugural press conference the same day that he would dissolve the Lower House on Thursday. The breakup will come 10 days after the prime minister’s inauguration, and the election will be held 17 days after the dissolution, with both periods the shortest since the end of World War II.

As the terms of the existing members of the lower chamber expire Oct. 21, it will be the first time in the country’s postwar history for Lower House lawmakers to face no snap election.

Currently, the LDP and Komeito have 276 seats and 29 seats, respectively, adding up to 305 of the 465 seats of the chamber. Among opposition parties, the CDP has 110 seats, the Japanese Communist Party 12 seats, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) 10 seats, and the Democratic Party for the People eight seats.

JIJI Press