Inflation to nuclear power: What's at stake in Japan's election

Inflation is set by local governments last I checked.

LDP has won the confidence of most people throughout years. Young generations want some change. Yet, Japan will vote most probably in favour of stability in such difficult international circumstances.

No (proper) Opposition Party. No change!

And, I suspect that the Japanese like it that way.

Kishida will continue to raise prices for everything and more new tax laws and lead the country out of its peaceful pacifist constitution and into wars.

Less freedom and Less safety and Less healthcare.

That includes plans to soften the blow from oil prices via subsidies to gasoline wholesalers and other measures

Next up in the LDP New capitalism:

To raise wages an increase in the consumption tax to subsidize companies to maybe give the staff a raise.

The LDP worked toward inflation for decades.

It inflates their rentier assets.

Their interests are not congruent with the public, in true oligarchical fashion.

Quality of life? Should be No1, fix the other crap after getting a quality of life first. But I’m not sponsored by big business so I have no say.

What's at stake in Japan's election

The opposition parties are at stake. Incompetent ones will be voted out.

Opinion polls show almost two-thirds of voters support bolstering the military.

Well last election only 45% of the nation voted so that would mean they have 30% of voters support. Yep that sounds about the total support for LDP nationwide.

Now make sure you listen to the LDP media propaganda of the year "opposition are weak"

I hope Japan will wake up sometime soon but I just don't see it happening.

It’s not an election? It’s a farce! There is no opposition to the LDP and the majority of the 50% of people who vote are LDP fanatics. Campaign platforms mean nothing when the verdict is already clear.

Turn on those nuclear power plants and do it now!

We need energy for production and for households.

Unless you want to live with "requests to decrease the consumption of energy" nonsense for the next foreseeable future.

And it is going to get worse in winter when there is less sun and those solar power plants will generate less energy.

Think wisely while voting.

People vote against their interest,based on their self delusional beliefs

Utterly pointless election. The LDP has basically been in power bar one blip since the war. How is that a level playing ground. Any other nation it would be considered a dictatorship. Generations of previous youths and even todays 40-50yr olds have no interest in politics and simply don’t vote or they go with the flow and vote LDP if they do. No credible opposition to a one horse race. The whole political system needs overhauling.

there is nothing in stake.

japanese elections are jut parody when winner is known well in advance.

there is no any change for good in sight at all.

same ldp same oyaji same rhetoric,same zero progress for decades

Utterly pointless election. The LDP has basically been in power bar one blip since the war. How is that a level playing ground. Any other nation it would be considered a dictatorship. Generations of previous youths and even todays 40-50yr olds have no interest in politics and simply don’t vote or they go with the flow and vote LDP if they do. No credible opposition to a one horse race. The whole political system needs overhauling

THIS!!!

It’s not an election? It’s a farce! There is no opposition to the LDP and the majority of the 50% of people who vote are LDP fanatics. Campaign platforms mean nothing when the verdict is already clear.

Ignorant and prejudiced. The LDP is far from a unitary party. The LDP has its serious opposition within, as LDP lawmakers hold different/conflicting views and different supporters.

Besides, by key opinion surveys the majority of Japanese voters regardless of age, sex or other variables have expressed disappointment with the opposition outside the LDP. They are more pragmatic.

 The defense budget this fiscal year is 5.4 trillion yen, less than a quarter of what China spends.

So what? It's not that Japan, not having the financial means can afford to spend as much either...(not even mentioning that Japan does not have the same number of servicemen or other logistics capacity requiring such an amount to start with either).

China can not afford to spend the amount that the US does, while nobody can afford to spend the amount that China does. It's like trying to compare the exports of 1 mio tons of apples from one country to the exports of 100K tons of oranges from another country and saying the latter should aim to export 1 mio tons of oranges as well: it's an exercise in pointlessness.

In its election manifesto, the LDP has called for defense spending to double to 2% of GDP, which would be on par with the minimum level North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members have pledged to spend.

Also, why mentioning NATO? Japan is only a partner of NATO and NATO's goals, historical and regional context have nothing to do with Japan either.

NATO may need to keep an eye on China these days, but if we're talking about the APAC-region, the only NATO-related component that may be able to do something about it are the US which happens to be a NATO-member PERIOD. If China starts doing fishy things around the Mediterranean area (Africa or Middle-East) which is essentially NATO-turf, then things maybe different though.

Kishida has said Japan must make "better use" of nuclear energy. 

Kishida's party sat on their hands to tackle what was obviously an energy-crisis for more than 11 years after Fukushima. Going back to "what has been done for decades, the ways it has been done for decades" is the only thing they came up with. I'm still waiting to see legal proceedings against NPP operators skimping on security, faking security-related data and falsifying security-related reports which was what got us Fukushima to start with (not even mentioning a lot of unsavory nuclear incidents in Japan over decades). Not holding my breath for any legal proceedings any time soon though...

Revising the constitution, specifically the war-renouncing Article 9, has long been a goal of conservatives who view the U.S.-drafted document as out of touch with today's needs.

What is out of touch is the gerontocracy in parliament. The average voter knows that a constitutional amendment is completely unrelated to their daily life and challenges. They also know that the current constitution kept Japan out of harm's way for over 70 years. They also just need to look at their resp. family-trees to see how quite a lot of "branches" got cut during the 1941-1945 period, dying on the battleground on foreign soil, being shot down from the sky, finding to an early and watery grave or being firebombed or nuked on home ground, while most of the politician's family-member alive at that time died in their beds.

There has never been any appetite for constitutional changes amongst the population and the so-called need for amendments to "enable defense of the country" excuse is preposterous to say the least.

Kishida's choice is likely to determine whether the bank will stay on a dovish course or change tack after years of ultra-easy policy that has now weighed on the yen and drawn fire from the public as prices rise.

As Abe himself quipped, the J-gov considers the BOJ as a "subsidiary" of the government (「日銀は政府の子会社」), thus cornering the national economy more and more by prepping up decades of failed economic policies rolled out by the successive LDP-governments.

The result being that the population suffers from the current policy while it's the country itself that will go tits up should be give up that policy. So, again, it's up to the plebs to take the fall for J-gov incompetence.

Which brings us to the last point: why is the election important.

Kishida would be able to consolidate control of the party with three years to drive through legislation before another election has to be held.

A setback for the government could expose Kishida to challenges from rivals in the factious LDP.

...which is pretty much it. Kishida's LDP hovers at around 35.6 pct voting intentions. But him losing out to what can only be labelled very unsavory characters in his own party can only make things much much muuuuuuch worse for average Taro and Naoko.

But again, the fact that 64.6 pct do not support his party of old geezers (with 33.7 pct not supporting any party) tells you everything you need to know about how much the average voter is just so fed up with how things are run around here...

https://www.nhk.or.jp/politics/articles/lastweek/85223.html

Inflation to nuclear power: What's at stake in Japan's election

Nothing, literally nothing is at stake in any so-called election in japan.

This headline is shameless hype.

[Photo above] - reminds me of skewered grilled food, made so well by some Japanese restaurants . . . .

I note that opening the borders to foreign tourists is not one of the major issues of this election.

No change, just life will be worse. Buy solar panels and grow your own vegetables. Weekends, go fishing.