Japan's political leaders made their final appeals to voters on Saturday, a day before the general election to decide whether to give Prime Minister Fumio Kishida a mandate for his COVID-19 and economic policies.
The Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito are looking to retain a majority in the 465-seat House of Representatives, the powerful lower chamber of the Diet, with the outcome hinging on dozens of battleground constituencies.
In a stump speech in Saitama Prefecture's Higashimatsuyama, just north of Tokyo, Kishida vowed to secure more hospital beds to treat COVID-19 patients and begin administering vaccine booster shots from December, while putting the world's third-largest economy back on a growth track and boosting middle-class incomes.