Japan\u2019s incoming prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Monday he aimed to call snap elections for October 27, as equities plunged on a strong yen and fears that tax hikes are on the cards. Ishiba, who was set to be formally appointed as premier on Tuesday after winning the leadership of the ruling party, supports the Bank of Japan\u2019s drive to hike interest rates and has said \u201cthere is room\u201d to raise corporate levies. The leadership contest for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost uninterrupted for decades, went down to the wire on Friday, with right-winger Sanae Takaichi tipped to win when markets closed. With Takaichi a fan of former prime minister Shinzo Abe\u2019s unorthodox \u201cAbenomics\u201d economic policies of ultra-low interest rates and tax cuts, the prospect of her winning sent stocks higher and the yen lower. Takaichi, an arch-nationalist, would also have been the first woman prime minister in a country where men still dominate politics and business. Ishiba, 67, is a fierce critic of Abe and his last-gasp victory \u2014 on his fifth attempt \u2014 sent the yen soaring to around 142 per dollar from around 146.50. Investors dumped stocks on Monday, with exporters among the worst hit. The Nikkei index closed down 4.8 per cent, with Toyota tumbling 7.6pc and real estate company Mitsui Fudosan off 8.7pc. Ishiba confirmed on Monday media reports that he aimed to call snap elections for October 27, saying it was \u201cimportant for the new government to be judged by the people as soon as possible\u201d. LDP elders are banking on Ishiba, a self-confessed defence \u201cgeek\u201d fond of making model ships and planes, to boost the party\u2019s popularity. Its poll ratings fell sharply under outgoing premier Fumio Kishida, hit by a damaging party slush fund scandal and anger over rising prices. Defence ties Ishiba vowed on Friday to restore confidence in the LDP after the scandal and to shore up defence ties among neighbours rattled by recent Chinese actions. He is considering appointing as finance minister Katsunobu Kato, a former chief cabinet secretary who ran in the LDP leadership race, media reports said. Gen Nakatani, a veteran former defence minister, will return to his old job while Takeshi Iwaya, another former defence minister, will come in as foreign minister, the reports said. Kishida pledged to double defence spending and deepen military cooperation with the United States and other allies in the region rattled by China\u2019s rise and an unpredictable North Korea. Ishiba backs the creation of an \u201cAsian Nato\u201d and has said Japan should respond more strongly to Chinese or Russian breaches of its airspace or waters, as has happened repeatedly in recent weeks. But questions remain over how the government plans to pay for the upgrade and also find enough recruits for the military among Japan\u2019s shrinking population. Taro Saito, senior economist at NLI Research Institute, told AFP that Ishiba has so far focused on how to improve public finances in Japan, which has one of the world\u2019s highest debt mountains. \u201cHe seems not so interested in policies to boost economic growth, although what is most important for Japan is low growth rather than fiscal health,\u201d Saito said. Chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, who is reportedly set to remain under Ishiba, declined to comment on Monday on the fall in stocks but said the government would \u201cmake judgements with calm heads\u201d. \u201cWe will continue closely watching trends in financial markets at home and abroad with a sense of vigilance and, while cooperating closely with the Bank of Japan, we will do our best in management of the economy and finance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japan\u2019s incoming prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Monday he aimed to call snap elections for October 27, as equities plunged on a strong yen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19930,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}