Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision to call an early Lower House election, due this Sunday, was a puzzle. Together with its coalition partner, Komeito, his Liberal Democratic Party held an unassailable majority. Even though the newly formed Kibo no To (Party of Hope) under Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike seemed certain to eat into that majority, he was still safe. Maybe he felt he could somehow exploit the current opposition disarray to his advantage.
Koike has an attractive personality. But speaking as someone who has known her ever since she was assistant for a popular series of TV interview programs back in the 1980s, her only consistent policy seems to me to be a virulently nationalistic dislike of all communist nations. Elsewhere she seems to rely on the fashions of the day — currently all the way from a freeze on consumption tax increases and an end to nuclear power to curing hay fever and removing unsightly power poles.
Not that Abe's policies are much better. He has suddenly discovered that Japan has a serious population problem. Yes, indeed. But why did he do so little encourage kindergarten/preschool education in the past? As for immigration — the only immediate answer to declining population, in rural areas especially — the conservative LDP is still sitting on its hands.