Japanese parties make last efforts for Sunday's election
TOKYO. KAZINFORM - The Japanese political parties on Saturday made their last efforts in the official election campaigning for Sunday's poll of the House of Representatives, or the lower house, in Japanese parliament.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is also the president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), vowed in a speech in Tokyo's Akihabara that his economic policies dubbed "Abenomics" "will increase employment and wages. It's important to bring warm winds of economic recovery."
"Abenomics" is a major focal point of the general election among other topics including right to collective self-defense, Constitution revision and restart of the country's idle nuclear reactors.
Abe said his economic policies have taken effects to bring recovery in some areas, but some opposition parties, citing recent government data suggesting the country's economy has slipped into recession, criticized the "Abenomics" was a failure and resulted in an enlarged wealth gap.
Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the Komeito Party, the small partner of the LDP, assured voters in Shizuoka Prefecture that LDP- Komeito bloc will deliver on its promise to introduce a lower tax rate on daily necessities when the government otherwise raises the consumption tax in 2017 to 10 percent from 8 percent now, according to local media. "The danger is that the Abe administration does not listen to the people's voices," Banri Kaieda, head of the Democratic Party of Japan, the major opposition party here, was quoted as saying in Tokyo. "Are you going to support another four years of Mr. Abe's politics," he asked voters to think before casting their ballots on Sunday.
Kenji Eda, co-head of the Japan's Innovation Party, said that," if you give a sweeping victory to the Abe administration, it will increase the likelihood of restarting nuclear power plants rapidly, and Japan getting dragged into war by sending Self-Defense Forces troops overseas."
Other opposition party leaders also sought to gain more supports of voters dissatisfied with Abe's policies.
Abe dissolved the lower house last month and called the snap election so as to make his administration survive longer before it is further weakened by slump economic data, scandal-hit cabinet members and unpopular bills the LDP approved or will be passed, Xinhua informs.
Sunday's election will see some 1,191 candidates to run for 475 seats in the chamber and many polls here showed the LDP would win a landslide victory.