{"id":76114,"date":"2026-01-28T15:26:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T06:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/28\/japan-snap-general-election-sanae-takaichi-weather-snow"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:26:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T06:26:37","slug":"snow-and-freezing-cold-may-shape-outcome-of-japans-snap-general-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76114","title":{"rendered":"Snow and freezing cold may shape outcome of Japan\u2019s snap general election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime minister Sanae Takaichi acknowledges her decision to call early poll could prove challenging for voters in snowbound regions<\/p>\n<p>Frozen extremities are one of several obstacles facing voters in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/japan\">Japan<\/a> as they prepare to cast their ballots at next month\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/19\/japan-snap-election-sanae-takaichi-ldp\">snap general election<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The vote, called by the prime minister, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/sanae-takaichi\">Sanae Takaichi<\/a>, less than four months after taking office, will be held in the middle of a winter that has seen record snowfall in parts of the country, prompting concern about a low turnout.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/28\/japan-snap-general-election-sanae-takaichi-weather-snow\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime minister Sanae Takaichi acknowledges her decision to call early poll could prove challenging for voters in snowbound regionsFrozen extremities are one of several obstacles facing voters in Japan as they prepare to cast their ballots at next month&#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":[41,88,3455,1791,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-japan","category-sanae-takaichi","category-snow","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76114","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=76114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76115,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76114\/revisions\/76115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}