Monday, December 8, 2014

New elections in Japan – a formality – Swedish Radio

New elections in Japan – a formality – Swedish Radio

In a week the election of Japan and the incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party, looks set to win big, according to opinion polls. The election is seen as a vote of confidence on Abe’s economic policies and his foreign policy to ha superpower China.

Standing on the roof of a van parked at a busy street in Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeal for voter support.

– Give us the power and we will change Japan, he says, and mentions self-defense forces, he wants to expand.

Japan must throw off his pacifist shackles and its debt World War II in order to assert their interests.

– He gives me hope, says Cato Masayuky who come together his wife to show their support. They stand across the street and sway with its own small Japanese flag. Cato believes that Abe is the first prime minister who defend Japan’s pride and that Japan must take more space internationally now that China is growing military and economic.

– Japan was one of the most peaceful countries in Southeast Asia before World War II, then it was war, and in war happens terrible things. But Japan did not behave differently from others, says Cato.
Get historians would agree with him, but what he says is in line with Abe’s historical revisionism that aroused strong feelings in China and South Korea.

But Abe’s speech here at a bus station in central Tokyo is short. The nationalist message is interwoven with economic reforms, which will provide jobs and be able to assist young to have a family.

Mrs Masayuky is more interested in the latter.

– We are both 35 We have no fixed income and no children. Clearly one day I want to have house and family, she says.

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