Fumio Kishida sworn-in as new Prime Minister, to call election for lower house on October 31

Tokyo: Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was sworn in by the Diet on Monday (Oct 4) afternoon, is set to dissolve parliament next week and call an election for October 31, national public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News said Monday.

As he seeks to revive support for his ruling party ahead of a general election that could likely come this month, the poll aims at exploiting a traditional honeymoon period accorded to new governments and a sharp drop in the number of coronavirus infections.

Kishida, the soft-spoken scion of a Hiroshima political family, beat popular vaccine chief Taro Kono to win leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party last week.

Japan’s 100th Prime Minister, Kishida, was former foreign minister with an image as a low-key consensus builder, beat out three contenders last week to lead the party and become the new Prime Minister as it has a majority in parliament.

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He is set to dissolve parliament on October 14 and will announce the election in his first news conference as prime minister later on Monday, NHK television said.

"Kishida’s not wasting any time at all," Tobias Harris, a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress, said on Twitter.

"October 31 puts the opposition on its heels, takes advantage of a honeymoon in the polls, plus a better chance of lower case numbers."

Harris added, "If he wins comfortably in the general election and can hold things together well enough to win the upper house elections next year, he’ll have up to three years without an election."

A Diet session began at 1 pm (12 pm in Singapore), where lawmakers in both the Lower and Upper Houses voted for the new Prime Minister.

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• Fumio Kishida
• Japan
• Prime Minister
• call election
• sworn-in
• October 31