{"id":76007,"date":"2026-01-19T18:39:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T09:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/19\/japan-snap-election-sanae-takaichi-ldp"},"modified":"2026-01-19T18:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T09:39:27","slug":"japans-prime-minister-calls-snap-election-as-approval-ratings-ride-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76007","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s prime minister calls snap election as approval ratings ride high"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sanae Takaichi tells senior figures in ruling Liberal Democratic party she plans to dissolve lower house on 23 January<\/p>\n<p>Japan\u2019s prime minister, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/21\/pm-sanae-takaichi-japan-prime-minister\">Sanae Takaichi<\/a>, has called a snap election as she attempts to capitalise on high approval ratings since becoming the country\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/20\/sanae-takaichi-likely-become-japan-first-female-prime-minister\">first female prime minister<\/a> three months ago.<\/p>\n<p>Takaichi, a conservative who is embroiled in a deepening <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/nov\/17\/china-and-japan-are-in-a-war-of-words-over-taiwan-what-happens-next\">dispute with China<\/a> over the security of Taiwan, said on Monday she would dissolve the lower house of the Diet \u2013 Japan\u2019s parliament \u2013 on 23 January, with an election to follow on 8 February.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/19\/japan-snap-election-sanae-takaichi-ldp\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sanae Takaichi tells senior figures in ruling Liberal Democratic party she plans to dissolve lower house on 23 JanuaryJapan\u2019s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has called a snap election as she attempts to capitalise on high approval ratings since becomi&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,88,3455,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-japan","category-sanae-takaichi","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76008,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76007\/revisions\/76008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}