Japan's Sanae Takaichi wins a supermajority after gambling on a snap election (www.nbcnews.com)
from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 17:45
https://lemmy.world/post/42870091

The Japanese leader’s election gambit, fueled by the power of her personality and some unlikely help from young voters consumed by “Sanamania,” appears to have paid off.

Japan’s conservative prime minister Sanae Takaichi has won a landslide victory after she gambled on a high-stakes snap election.

Takaichi, who took office in October after being elected leader of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), surpassed the 310 seats needed for a supermajority in the 465-seat lower house, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported from the official election count on Sunday evening. The supermajority allows her ruling coalition to override the upper house, where it lacks a majority.

An NHK exit poll as voting ended earlier on Sunday projected the LDP would win between 274 and 326 seats. The party and its coalition partner Ishin were projected to win a combined 302-366 seats, as voters turned out amid freezing temperatures in a rare winter election.

#world

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1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi@piefed.zip on 08 Feb 18:45 next collapse

Voters: Living expenses are too high, yen is weak and imports are expensive, we are suffering

Also voters: Let’s make the status quo stronger

nialv7@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 18:55 collapse

she’s the anti-status quo candidate. it’s just she will move the country even move to the right.

Formfiller@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 19:52 collapse

By making it more corrupt and less affordable. All these fascists are the same

_Nico198X_@europe.pub on 08 Feb 18:46 next collapse

we’re all so fucked. ppl are morons.

bagsy@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 18:58 collapse

reptile brains arent evolved for the power of algorithm propaganda. yes we are fucked by the right, but its only temporary until clinate change decimates everything.

TwodogsFighting@lemdro.id on 08 Feb 19:07 collapse

Oh, thank goodness. Right wrong hell until mad Max times.

bagsy@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 19:17 collapse

May you live in interesting times…

avidamoeba@lemmy.ca on 08 Feb 18:54 next collapse

Takaichi is known for favouring proactive government spending. She supports heavy government investment in critical strategic sectors in what she refers to as “crisis management investment”. These include artificial intelligence, semiconductors, nuclear fusion, biotechnology, and defence.

Her other policies aside, the economic one looks like a winner.

Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca on 08 Feb 19:01 collapse

I’m sure the shareholders will be happy.

avidamoeba@lemmy.ca on 08 Feb 20:28 collapse

Yeah, you’re probably right. Just looked at unionization rate and it’s around 16%. Workers won’t see much from this investment.

Funny exerpt from wiki:

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the U.S. Occupation authorities initially encouraged the formation of independent unions, but reversed course as part of broader anti-Communist measures.

orclev@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 21:22 collapse

The cold war era propaganda and policies have really fucked everything up. There’s a straight line between them and today’s Republican/MAGA party that runs right through Reagan’s economic policies. MAGA sits at the crossroads of that and the festering racism that was never dealt with following the civil war. Unfortunately America’s world police mentality (and CIA fuckery, another result of the cold war) has spread those policies and attitudes to a bunch of other countries (who all for some strange reason have a dominant conservative media company owned by Rupert Murdoch, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence right?).

Japan has struggled with horrendous xenophobia for pretty much their entire history so this isn’t really surprising even if it is disappointing. Unfortunately we’re seeing a rise in far right parties around the globe and there are depressingly few liberal governments left. If this keeps up it’s not going to take much to ignite WW3 with all these nationalists taking control.

avidamoeba@lemmy.ca on 08 Feb 22:13 collapse

Completely agree. A lot of countries were on some path or another of dealing with liberal capitalism’s collapse that gave us The Great Depression. The propaganda you mention steered these changes right back to the right - towards oligarch class dominance over working people, like it used to be before the depression. Unsurprisingly we find ourselves in a situation very reminiscent to the pre-depression environment.

ilinamorato@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 18:55 next collapse

Hmm, I just realized that I (an American living in New Zealand) have no idea what Japanese politics are like. To Wikipedia!

Takaichi has been described as holding hard-line conservative and Japanese nationalist views,

uh oh

citing former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher as a role model and deeply influential on her personal political beliefs.

Uh oh

Like Thatcher, she is called the “Iron Lady”.

Uh Oh

Takaichi is a member of Nippon Kaigi, a far-right ultraconservative organisation

UH OH

that argues for a reinterpretation of Japanese history

RED ALERT

amongst ultranationalist lines.

WELP

Oof. Well, I guess it had to happen to Japan someday. It’s happened everywhere else. Here’s hoping it doesn’t last long and the damage is minimal.

ameancow@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 19:25 collapse

Hey look at it this way, we may finally get our mechs out of this.

I mean, they may be the last thing you see, but at least we may see them.

Grass@sh.itjust.works on 08 Feb 19:26 next collapse

She looks like a traditional japanese mask and that worries me.

Sine_Fine_Belli@lemmy.world on 08 Feb 20:10 next collapse

Bruh

ruuster13@lemmy.zip on 08 Feb 21:16 next collapse

She wasn’t gambling. This wasn’t a huge risk. Big news outlets have become dinosaurs struggling to understand a new world. Her team calculated this win using modern viral social media strategies and polling metrics. It’s not just gEnZ that is swayed by social media. Wake up NBCeeple; the Trump virus hath spread.

theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 08 Feb 21:47 next collapse

Terrible but expected news.

obbeel@lemmy.eco.br on 08 Feb 21:50 collapse

I know little more from Japan than the mainstream culture knowledge. That said, Japan is said to be a place where people are cold and distant. So, things starting getting more social, they get more tourists, and then instead of relaxing in relation to the social sphere, Japan is like: “No, let’s be more cold and distant.”. Yeah, that will work.