TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved the lower house of Parliament on Friday, paving the way for a Feb. 8 snap election.
The move is an attempt to capitalize on her popularity to help her governing party regain ground after major losses in recent years, but it will delay parliamentary approval for a budget that aims at boosting a struggling economy and addressing soaring prices.
Elected in October as Japan’s first female leader, Takaichi has been in office only three months, but she has seen strong approval ratings of about 70%.
Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party could still face some challenges as it reels from a series of scandals over corruption and the party’s past ties to the controversial Unification Church. But it is unclear whether the new opposition Centrist Reform Alliance can attract moderate voters, while opposition parties are still too splintered to a pose a serious threat to the LDP.
Takaichi is also seeing rising animosity with China since she made remarks that touched on Taiwan. And U.S. President Donald Trump wants her to spend more on weapons as Washington and Beijing pursue military superiority in the region.
The dissolution of the 465-member lower house paves the way for a 12-day campaign that officially starts Tuesday.
Takaichi hopes to secure a governing majority in the lower house, the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber Parliament, where the LDP and its coalition had a slim majority after an election loss in 2024. The coalition lacks a majority in the upper house and relies on winning votes from opposition members to pass its agenda.
Opposition leaders criticized Takaichi for delaying passage of a budget needed to fund key economic measures.
“I believe that the only option is for the people, as sovereign citizens, to decide whether Sanae Takaichi should be prime minister,” she told a news conference Monday when announcing plans for the election.
“I’m staking my career as prime minister” on it, she said.
A hardline conservative, Takaichi wants to highlight differences with her centrist predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba.
Takaichi stresses that voters need to judge her fiscal spending moves, further military buildup and tougher immigration policies to make Japan “strong and prosperous.”
While an upbeat and decisive image has earned her strong approval ratings and fans of her personal style, the LDP is not popular as it recovers from a political funding scandal. Many traditional LDP voters have shifted to emerging far-right populist opposition parties, such as the anti-globalist Sanseito.
Meanwhile, Japan faces escalating tensions with China after Takaichi made remarks suggesting that Japan could become involved if China takes military action against Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own. A furious China has increased economic and diplomatic retribution.
Takaichi wants to push further a military buildup and spending increases, while Trump has pressured Japan to spend more on defense.
She says she needs a mandate to push policies she’s agreed on with her new coalition partner, the right-wing Japan Innovation Party. They struck a deal in October to pursue goals that include a stronger military, continuing male-only imperial succession, and accelerating the reactivation of offline nuclear reactors.
Takaichi struck a deal with the JIP after the LDP’s longtime ally Komeito, a Buddhist-backed centrist party, left the ruling bloc over her ideological views and reluctance to pursue anti-corruption measures. With the new partner’s help, she secured just enough votes to become prime minister.
Komeito turned to the main liberal-leaning opposition, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, to form the Centrist Reform Alliance just in time for the election.
“Now is our chance to start the centrist movement,” said Yoshihiko Noda, a former prime minister and leader of the Constitutional Democrats.
He said the new alliance seeks to achieve a diverse, gender-equal and inclusive society with “people-first politics,” speaking at a joint news conference with co-leader Tetsuo Saito, the head of Komeito.
As divisions and confrontations spread globally and economic disparity widens at home, the new group is promising a “realistic” security policy and efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
Opposition groups in Japan are seen as too splintered to win an election, and so far, polling for the alliance is not promising.
