For a guy with a two-thirds majority in the Diet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has accomplished remarkably little since 2012.
In the past year, real wages declined 3 percent while the economy fell into recession. Even so, this may be the least-worst bad time for the LDP to seek a renewed mandate as Abe enacts his unpopular policies on state secrets, security policy and constitutional revision while revving up the nation's nuclear reactors. Notice that he doesn't call for a referendum on any of these policies, because he knows he would lose. So instead he will trample an enfeebled opposition in next week's election and pretend that's what matters.
Some government advisers whisper that Abe doesn't really care about economics. Instead, he is obsessed with enacting his ideological agenda and needs an extra two years to realize his stated goal of overturning the postwar order that most Japanese are proud of.