In formally announcing that he will dissolve the Lower House for a snap election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he needs a mandate by the voters for his plan to dedicate revenue from the next consumption tax hike to support for child-rearing, including free pre-school education. This would force the government to delay its target of achieving a fiscal primary balance by 2020. Abe's Liberal Democratic Party also reportedly hopes to include in its campaign promises his bid to amend Article 9 of the Constitution. It's not clear, however, whether these issues have been discussed sufficiently to build a consensus — even within the LDP — before seeking voters' judgment.

Abe said he is also seeking a fresh mandate from the electorate so that his administration can respond on a more solid footing to the security challenges posed by North Korea's ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons programs. However, the prime minister has not made clear what specific actions he intends to take. This could leave voters baffled over just why they are being asked to back him at the ballot box. The various causes that he cited for holding the snap election at this point — including his claim that he is dissolving the Lower House "to break through the national crisis" — sound less than convincing.

His decision to call the snap poll seems driven more by the political calculation that the LDP can maximize the seats it can win — or minimize its possible losses — by once again catching the opposition off guard. The popular approval ratings for Abe's administration, whose plunge to their worst levels just a few months ago appeared to make an imminent election impractical, have quickly recovered. Meanwhile, the largest opposition Democratic Party remains in tatters, with the recent choice of Seiji Maehara as new chief failing either to uplift its sluggish voter support or halt the moves by its lawmakers to desert the struggling party — many of them to join a new party being launched by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike. The popular governor, whose local party upstaged the LDP in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election in July, scrambled to launch the national party in time for Abe's snap election announcement. It is uncertain, however, how far yet another fledgling party can go, even by teaming up with the DP defectors, in the vote just weeks from now.