Japan PM to dissolve Lower House for snap election

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi plans to dissolve the Lower House for a snap election shortly after the annual parliamentary session begins next week, leaders of her ruling coalition said Wednesday.

“I was notified by Prime Minister Takaichi that she will dissolve” the Lower House “at an early stage of the ordinary parliamentary session,” Hirofumi Yoshimura, co-head of junior coalition partner Japan Innovation Party (JIP), told reporters. He added that Takaichi plans a news conference Monday to explain her decision.

Takaichi, Japan’s first woman prime minister appointed in October, enjoys around 70% cabinet approval. But her ruling bloc holds only a slim majority in the Lower House, limiting its ability to push through her agenda.

She also informed Shunichi Suzuki, secretary-general of her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who said the election would partly seek a public mandate on the new LDP-JIP partnership.

The junior Komeito party ended a 26-year coalition with the LDP last year, citing the party’s failure to tighten funding rules after a slush fund scandal and expressing concern over Takaichi’s hardline China rhetoric and visits to a Tokyo shrine honoring war dead.

If the Lower House is dissolved on Jan. 23, the start of the regular parliamentary session, media report the likely election date would be Feb. 8. A short gap is intended to minimize debate disruptions to the record 122.3-trillion-yen ($768 billion) budget for fiscal 2026, which Takaichi wants approved quickly to address inflation and support Japan’s economy.