Two days after he created strong political “winds” by indicating he might move to dissolve the Lower House for a snap election, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared he will not take that step for now.

Kishida’s apparent attempt to generate political tensions kept both ruling and opposition lawmakers jittery for the two days, effectively rendering the Diet dysfunctional in the last days of this year’s regular session.

Kishida deserves to be severely criticized for causing the Diet to waste precious time for important policy issue discussions by playing with his power to dissolve the chamber. He should be more aware of the grave responsibility that comes with the huge political powers he wields as the nation’s leader.

On June 15, Kishida told reporters that he had no intention to dissolve the Lower House until the end of the current Diet session on June 21. In a news conference two days before, however, he said he would closely monitor and assess the political situation as various factors emerge toward the end of the session.

Given that he had consistently denied considering the step, Kishida must have made this remark fully aware that it would be taken as a sign that he was weighing the option of calling a snap poll.

Some lawmakers within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had argued that any move by an opposition party to propose a vote of no-confidence in the Cabinet would give the prime minister good reason to dissolve the Lower House. With the ruling coalition of the LDP and Komeito controlling an overwhelming majority in the chamber, however, the ruling camp could easily vote down a no-confidence motion. In fact, Kishida on June 15 told the LDP to ensure a swift rejection of the expected no-confidence motion that the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) was planning to submit on June 16.

The Kishida administration regarded a bill to secure funding for its plan to sharply expand defense spending as the most important legislation for the last stage of the ordinary Diet session. The CDP took a series of actions at the Diet to resist passage of the bill while the Lower House was considering it, including a no-confidence motion against the finance minister. After the opposition party readily agreed to vote on the bill in the Upper House, Kishida took the trouble of declaring he would not dissolve the Lower House, even without waiting for the end of the session. This demonstrated that he hinted at the possibility of calling an election only as a ploy to put pressure on the opposition party for swift passage of the bill.

Dissolving the Lower House now would mean sacking all the representatives who have yet to serve half of their four-year terms. A Lower House election would also cost the government around 60 billion yen ($422.9 million). Kishida’s tactic of threatening to call an election purely as a form of political maneuvering at the legislature signals a blatant disregard for the serious implications of the move.

Asahi Shimbun editorials have argued for a cautious stance toward dissolving the Lower House. Unless it is necessary for the government to seek a fresh public mandate due to the emergence of a new major policy issue that was not debated in the previous election or the government has radically changed a basic policy, Lower House lawmakers should be allowed to serve their four-year terms to the end so that they can concentrate on discussing policies and enacting necessary laws. 

There was speculation that Kishida would call an election to take advantage of the rise in his poll ratings after the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May to score a major electoral victory and thereby secure his re-election in the LDP leadership election to be held in autumn next year.

This has again underscored the evil of the system that allows the prime minister to dissolve the Lower House at will.

The next possible timing for dissolving the chamber is this autumn, according to political pundits. If he takes the step as a ploy to bolster his chances of re-election without offering clear answers to questions related to how to finance his plan to double defense spending and his “different dimension” initiative to expand policy support for childbearing and child rearing, Kishida will face criticism for acting for personal political gain.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 17