Nippon Ishin party leader says Takaichi is to call snap election at start of Diet session

Japan’s Nippon Ishin party leader Yoshimura is out confirming that Takaichi will dissolve the lower house of parliament and call for a snap election. From before: Japan PM Takaichi reportedly states intention to dissolve parliament’s lower house

Yoshimura adds that Takaichi will announce more details on that on Monday, 19 January.

As mentioned in the linked post, the move here is mostly to shore up support and increase the number of ruling coalition seats while her support ratings remain high. All that of course before opposition lawmakers start piling on the questions on her policy setting when the Diet session begins. And the ongoing feud between Japan and China won’t make things easy for her, as it offers up free ammunition for other lawmakers to question her leadership.

The next ordinary Diet session will take place on 23 January and it would mark the first time since then that the lower house is dissolved at the very start of the calendar year.

The question now then becomes when will the snap election be called? The likely dates are either 8 February or 15 February at this juncture.