Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets with reporters at the prime minister’s office on the morning of Nov. 9. (Takeshi Iwashita)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has decided not to dissolve the Lower House for a snap election this year because of his current unpopularity among the public, senior government officials said.

Kishida was considering dissolving the Diet chamber to coincide with the extraordinary Diet session that opened in October.

And he had been counting on a package of economic measures worth 17 trillion yen ($113 billion) that includes income and inhabitant tax breaks as well as cash handouts for low-income households to buoy his Cabinet’s approval rating, the sources said.

But those measures have not electrified the public and are being roundly criticized by senior officials of the Liberal Democratic Party.

The Kishida Cabinet approval rating remains stuck at its lowest level mainly over growing criticism of the government’s response to rising prices and its policy of hiking taxes to bolster Japan’s defense capabilities.

When asked about plans to dissolve the Lower House by the end of the year, Kishida on Nov. 9 said his top priority is economic recovery.

“I will first tackle economic measures and other challenges that cannot be postponed, one by one and with single-minded devotion,” he told reporters at the prime minister’s office. “I am not thinking of anything else.”

Kishida hopes to capitalize on a Lower House election victory in seeking re-election as LDP president next autumn.

But he now finds himself struggling to win over the public and members of his own party.

Senior LDP officials, for example, have questioned the effectiveness of Kishida’s plan for across-the-board 40,000-yen tax cuts for each person.

“The economic measures have been criticized as election ploys, and that has dealt a heavy blow (to Kishida),” an aide to the prime minister said. “He has been forced to rule out the possibility of a Lower House dissolution.”

Kishida now hopes to regain public support by paving the way for an end to a low-price economy and seek an opportunity to dissolve the Lower House next year, the sources said.

His priority is ensuring the implementation of the economic stimulus package.

The government plans to submit a supplementary budget for fiscal 2023 to the extraordinary Diet session on Nov. 20.

The LDP and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, will also begin discussions in mid-November on tax system revisions for the tax breaks.

In addition to the economy, Kishida will focus on diplomacy on such occasions as a special summit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to be held in Tokyo in December.

However, Kishida’s centripetal force is rapidly declining within the ruling coalition.

Many coalition lawmakers said they cannot fight a Lower House election under an unpopular prime minister.

In 2009, Prime Minister Taro Aso was forced to dissolve the Lower House after failing to prop up his Cabinet’s approval rating, and the LDP lost power to the Democratic Party of Japan.

“(Aso) made a blunder because he was unable to boost the approval rating,” a former Cabinet minister said. “We seem to be in an atmosphere increasingly similar to that time.”

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